7 







. s 



THE 



SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



BY THE REV. 

THOMAS GRIFFITH, M.A. 

MINISTER OF RAM's CHAPEL, HOMERTON. 






THIRD EDITION. 



LONDON: 

T. CADELL, STRAND; 

HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY; 

AND SEELEY, FLEET STREET. 

1836. 



G77 7 



PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEV, 

Dorset Street, Fleet Street. 



/ 3V 



^ 

} 



PREFACE. 



It may conduce to the understanding of the 
do wing work to state that the subject is con- 
aiplated as forming that grand division of 
CH istianity — the Experimental — to which its 
^octrines are introductory, and of which its 
Duties are the practical result. The one theme 
of the Christian system appears to me to be 
The Kingdom of Heaven. The leading idea of 
Christian Doctrine is the opening of this king- 
dom to all believers. The distinctive spirit of 
Christian Experience is a filial confidence of our 
election to this kingdom.* And the governing 
principle of Christian Practice is a correspond- 
ing zeal for the advancement, in ourselves and 
others, of that holiness by which alone this 
Kingdom can be ultimately reached.-f* 

* See 2 Thess. ii. 13—15. t See 2 Peter i. 10—12. 



IV PREFACE. 

Of the first of these particulars — the Leading 
Idea of Christianity — I have already ventured 
an outline in a former publication. Of the se- 
cond — the Distinctive Spirit of Christianity — 
the present work endeavours to treat. I know 
indeed the peculiar difficulty of this subject. I 
know how impossible it is to convey by words 
what by experience alone can be fully under- 
stood. Our inward feelings we can but imper- 
fectly express. This expression, again, is still 
more imperfectly apprehended. And this ap- 
prehension, yet further, requires for its substan- 
tiation the reproduction in the mind of the 
reader, of those states of consciousness which 
are referred to, rather than described, by the 
writer. And thus a threefold difficulty is in- 
volved in the transmission of our sentiments on 
all those subjects which are neither scientific 
nor historical, but lie within the domain of taste 
and feeling, and address themselves to the heart 
rather than the head. Their intelligibility de- 
pends more upon the spirit of the reader than 
on the power of the writer. In a full-charged 
atmosphere the smallest vibration will be heard. 
In vacuo the largest bell is struck in vain. 

And hence the deep importance of our bring- 



PREFACE. 



ing to all works of experimental religion, a per- 
sonal, self-questioning, and meditative interest. 
For what has been said of Virtue is equally true 
of Piety ; no man can teach it to another ; not by 
definition, argument, description, can it be com- 
municated ; by sympathy alone can its independ- 
ent life be stirred within the soul, and develop- 
ed into vigour. Men can teach only what they 
know. What they feel, they must be satisfied 
with humbly telling forth in patient expecta- 
tion, till the feeble breath of their experience 
have crept quietly along the chords of congenial 
minds, and one and another give back at its gen- 
tle touch a responsive sound. 

Nor is such a personal interest and respon- 
siveness less necessary to our profiting by devo- 
tional and practical subjects than to our appre- 
hension of them. With the most accurate con- 
ceptions of religious truth, we shall have but 
little spiritual growth, without that working out 
a subject in our own minds, and realizing in them 
the experiences of which we read, which me- 
ditation, self-examination, and prayer can alone 
produce. Each successive year will behold us 
only where we were. Our spiritual movement 
(for movement we may have) will be not pro- 



PREFACE. 



gression, but oscillation. We shall only swing 
round with the tide of other men's emotions, 
not stretch out in our proper course. Our very 
diligence will be only conservative, not construc- 
tive. We shall repair from time to time the 
slight-made structure which in the first fervour 
of Repentance we had hastily run up, but we 
shall not strengthen its foundations, nor enlarge 
its plan, nor adorn its front, nor build it up 
towards heaven. 

May God sanctify this book to such an Edifi- 
cation of those who read it ; that they, " build- 
ing up themselves on their most holy faith, and 
praying in the Holy Ghost, may keep themselves 
in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our 
Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life !" 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

THE ESSENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



Page 






Chap. I. — Piety in General. 

Piety is not merely Knowledge of doctrinal Truths. 9 
Nor Practice of moral Duties. . . .11 

Still less is it an ignorant and immoral Sensibility. 13 
But it is the Sense of God's presence and authority 
in Nature — in Events — in Mind. . .15 



Chap. II. — Christian Piety. 

The primary element of Piety is Awe of the Divine 

Authority. .... 

But Christianity developes, in addition, a filial Con 
fldence in the Divine Love. 



With this Adam was created. 

This has been lost by Sin. 

But to this the Christian is restored by the Atonement 

of Christ. .... 

And exercises by the Spirit of Christ. 



20 

23 

25 
26 

2T 
28 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

Page 
Chap. III. — The Manifestations of Christian Piety. 

The Scriptures describe the Spirit of Christian Piety 
as manifesting its presence by producing Devoted- 
ness to God. . . . . 31 

Intercourse with God. . . . .33 

Peace with God. . . , . . 36 

Power for God. . . . . .40 



PART II. 

THE DEVELOPEMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

Chap. I. — The Source of the Spiritual Life. 

This Life must take its rise in the depths of the 
human spirit. . . . . 50 

For therein lies our disease. . . .51 

Which is too extensive for partial palliatives. . 52 

And too deep for superficial ones. . . 53 

And which requires, therefore, a remedy as inward as 
itself. . . . . . . 54 

This Life must spring from a Divine Source. 55 

For man cannot fully know, or effectually influence his 
own Spirit. . . . . .6 

And Piety must be a growth, prepared by a combina- 
tion of influences, exerted through a series of time. 57 
Its production, therefore, we are obliged to refer to 
God. . . . . .58 

To whom it is ascribed in Scripture. . 59 

And by the Church of England. . . .59 

Hence we see the Difficulties which the Subject must 
present to the earthly mind. . . 61 

The Encouragement which it affords to all who seek 
for Piety. . • .65 



CONTENTS. IX 

Page 
And the Means which they should use for its attain- 
ment ; viz. — Intercourse with themselves — with 
their Fellow Christians — with their God. . 67 

Chap. II. — The Process of the Spiritual Life. 

The Developement of Spiritual Life must be mani- 
fest to the consciousness of the Individual. . 72 

For the general phenomena of mind are perceptible. . 73 

And equally so must be those of Piety. . . 74 

And these phenomena are described in Scripture. . 75 

And must be equally essential now. . . 78 

The Process of this Manifestation will be similar in 
all religious minds. . . . .82 

For the natural condition of all men is similar. . 82 

And similar must be the process of their deliverance 

from it. . . . . .84 

Of which Deliverance the principal stages are 

From Indifference to Earnestness. 

From Ignorance to Knowledge. 

From Aversion to Love. 

From Dread to Peace. . . .87 

From Despondency to Hope. 

Chap. III. — Spiritual Awakening. 

Men are naturally indifferent to God. . . 92 

It is long before they know him at all. . . 92 

Longer before they are interested in him. . . 93 

And even then too little influenced by him. . 4 

They need therefore the Awakening of their Atten- 
tion to Him. . . . . .96 

Without this it is vain to have been consecrated to 
his service — to be members of his church — to un. 
derstand his truth — to be zealous for his cause. . 96 



X CONTENTS. 

Page 
For Attention is a personal interest in Truth as suited 

to our own necessities. • . .97 

And a personal Awaking to the Sense of God, and of 

our relation to him. .... 100 

This Awakening must be the work of God. . 102 

It is ascribed to him in Scripture. . . 103 

And therefore termed His Calling men to him. . 104 

Which Call, God vouchsafes in every object of Nature 

and every Means of Grace. . . . 105 

Chap. IV. — Spiritual Illumination. 

There may be much ignorance of God in the midst 
of outward advantages. . . . 109 

The Understanding may possess some knowledge of 
his laws. . . . . .110 

The Heart may feel some reverence for his authority. Ill 
And yet His character may be little understood. . 113 

The removal of this ignorance is essential to Chris- 
tian Piety. . . . . .114 

For Christian Piety is the exercise of love towards God. 114 
And this love depends on our acquaintance with God's 
love towards us. . . . .116 

And this Removal is effected by the contemplation 
of God in Jesus Christ. . . . 118 

In Christ only is displayed God's love to man. . 119 

For natural religion gives but an imperfect notion of 

God. . . . . .120 

Nay, an erroneous one. .... 121 

Thanks, then, be to God for his revelation of himself 

in Christ ! • . / . . .123 

Chap. V. — Spiritual Regeneration. 

Sect. I. — The Nature of Spiritual Regeneration. 

It is the awakening of a new disposition towards 
God 125 



CONTENTS. XI 

Page 

This is intimated by the Scripture descriptions of the 
Fact. . . . . .126 

And by the Scripture names which designate that Fact. 129 

Sect. II. — The Necessity of Spiritual Regeneration. 

The term Regeneration expresses, 1. A relative 
change of state. . . . .134 

Both in Scripture — the Fathers — and the Church of 
England. ..... 135 

But not the less, 2. A personal change of heart. . 144 
Which is indispensable to all men. . . 145 

Is demanded, under that very term, by our best Divines. 150 
And from its own nature, — and the Scripture state- 
ments concerning it — must necessarily be a personal 
experience. ..... 153 

Sect. III. — The Means of Spiritual Regeneration. 

The Scriptures state the Means of our Regeneration 
to be the Word of God. . . .157 

By which they mean the Proclamation of his mercy in 

Christ. . ... 158 

As the effects attributed to its reception, further show. 160 

The whole subject suggests Inquiry concerning our 

experience of this new disposition towards God. 164 

Direction, concerning its cultivation. . . 166 

Encouragement, to hope for its perfection. . 168 

Chap. VI. — Spiritual Peace. 

This results from Delight in God's presence. . 171 

Which the Christian realizes in the circumstances — the 
enjoyments — and the trials — of life. . . 171 

From Dependence on God's care. . . 175 

Such as was enjoyed by our Lord — and by St. Paul — 
and is the privilege of all his people. . . 176 

From Harmony with God's will. . . .178 



XII CONTENTS. 

Page 
Happiness is simply inward harmony. . . 178 

And what, then, is the happiness of Harmony with 
God! . . . . .179 

Chap. VII. — Spiritual Hope. 

Hope is the only effectual stay amidst the mental — 
spiritual — and moral imperfection of our present 
state. . . . . . .184 

For our present Knowledge of God is limited — it shall 

be complete ! .... 186 

Our Communion with God is interrupted — it shall be 

permanent! ..... 187 
Our service of God is feeble — it shall be full of vigour ! 188 
Hope, therefore, has ever formed the sustaining grace 

of God's people. . . . 189 

And this Hope is an humble and a sanctifying one. 192 
Springing from dependence on the work of Christ. 193 
And maintained by cherishing the Spirit of Christ. 195 



PART III. 

THE NOURISHMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

Chap. I The Necessity of Devotional Exercises. 

Devotion is the Natural Effusion of the spirit of 
adoption. ..... 200 

For this spirit is a heavenly Spirit, and therefore tends 
heavenward. .... 201 

It is a filial spirit, and therefore seeks communion 
with its Father. . . . .202 

This we see in our Lord. . . . 202 

And in his Disciples. .... 204 

And the indispensable Means of its nourishment. . 206 

For so only can Spiritual Ideas be made familiar to us. 206 
Spiritual Dispositions be made habitual. . . 208 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

Page 
And a life of Faith be maintained amidst a world of 

sense. ..... 209 

Devotion therefore must be an intentional, as well as a 

spontaneous exercise. .... 210 
It was so even with our Lord — both generally — and on 

particular occasions. . . . .211 

Much more must it be so with his People. . . 212 

Chap. II. — Devout Exercises of Mind. 

Sect. I. — Devotional Meditation. 

The Mind requires to be trained to the habitual En- 
joyment of God's presence. . . .214 
To this, Meditation is an important means. . 218 
For which, Contemplation furnishes the materials. 218 

Ranging through all the works and ways of God. . 219 

And recognizing Him alike in all His revelations of 
Himself. . . . . .223 

And of which, Adoration is the result. . . 225 

Which is the enjoyment of all spiritual minds. . 226 

And forms the highest exercise of Piety. . . 229 

Sect. II.-— Devotional Reading. 

Reading is the food of Thought. . . .231 

The Bible especially supplies this food. . . 234 

In reading which for Spiritual nourishment, consider 
it as the voice of God himself. . . . 236 

So shall it bring God present to your mind, even as he 
was to the Scripture Saints. . . . 237 

You will study its revelations as addressed directly to 
yourself. . . . . .241 

And find them an unfailing Guide. . . 242 

Sect. III. — Devotional Fellowship. 

Social Fellowship is essential to the nourishment of 
the human mind. .... 246 



XIV CONTENTS. 

Page 
Such Fellowship is not supplied by the ordinary in- 
tercourse of the world. .... 248 
But it is provided for in the Church of Christ. . 250 

Which was formed for this purpose by our Lord. . 251 
Was consolidated by his Apostles. . . 252 
And communion with which is urged on every Chris- 
tian, as the means of spiritual growth. . . 253 

Cultivate, therefore, Christian Fellowship, in the 
Private circle. ..... 255 

And in the Public congregation. . . . 257 

Chap. III. — Devout Exercises of Heart. 

The Christian is privileged to refer up to God all his 
sorrows and joys. .... 263 

Regarding his trials as God's appointment. . • 266 

And his comforts as God's gifts. . . . 267 

And waiting upon God in both. . . . 268 

To lay before God all his fears and hopes. . 269 

And to commend himself universally into the hands 
of God, with uncalculating faith. . . 273 

Chap. IV. — Devout Exercises of Will. 

Devotion influences the will by settling our Judg- 
ment of what is right. .... 278 

For it considers things, under God's eye. . . 279 

And discourses about them with God. . . 281 

And by strengthening our Determination for what is 
right. . . . . . .282 

For it affects the heart with love to holiness. . 282 

And draws down the Spirit of power for holiness. . 284 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



LECTURES ON CONFIRMATION AND THE LORD'S 
SUPPER. Fcap. 8vo. 6s. in cloth. 

THE LEADING IDEA OF CHRISTIANITY, 12mo. 5s. 
in cloth. 

SERMONS, preached in St. James's Chapel, Ryde. 8vo. 
lis. 

LIFE A PILGRIMAGE. A New Year's Sermon. Second 
Edition, demy 24mo. Is. 

CHRISTIAN LOYALTY. A Sermon on the Anniversary of 
the King's Accession. 8vo. Is. 



PART I. 



THE ESSENCE 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



Though Christ be the Head, yet is the Holy Ghost the 
Heart of the Church, from whence the vital spirits of grace 
and holiness are issued out, unto the quickening of the body 
mystical. 

Heylyn. 



In the powers and faculties of our souls God requireth the 
uttermost which our unfeigned affection toward him is able to 
yield ; so that if we affect him not far above and before all 
things, our religion hath not that inward perfection which it 
should have, neither do we indeed worship him as our God. 

Hooker. 



PART L 



THE ESSENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



CHAPTER I. 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 



We can never remind ourselves too often of the 
fact that Christianity is a remedy for human need ; 
that its leading Idea is Deliverance from all the ills 
that flesh is heir to, and its leading proclamation is 
peace — peace to them that are near and to all that 
are afar off. This grand characteristic is beauti- 
fully exhibited in the very title which is given to 
it in the Irish tongue, in which our term "The 
Gospel," is translated " The Story of Peace ;" and 
it is touchingly expressed by St. Augustine when 
he says, " In Cicero and Plato I meet with many 
things wisely said, and things that have a manifest 
tendency to move the passions, but in none of them 
do I find these words, ' Come unto me all ye that 

th 

7 



4 PIETY IN GENERAL. 

are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest.' " 

But the ills of man are various, and as various 
therefore are the consolations and the helps which 
the Gospel of Deliverance from those ills, pro- 
claims. Are we sensitive beings, and therefore 
wounded in every nerve by the physical evil which 
overspreads the earth ? The Gospel tells us of a 
time when all tears shall be wiped from every eye, 
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Are we 
moral beings, and therefore shocked and humbled 
by the degradation and self-contradiction which we 
witness in ourselves and in mankind at large ? The 
Gospel brings that healing medicine which can both 
soothe the diseased spirit, and restore it, ulti- 
mately, to perfect health. And are we religious 
beings, formed to recognize a relation of ourselves 
and of all things to an unseen Creator and Gover- 
nor, and therefore pained to see how little this 
relation is remembered, nay, how much that re- 
membrance is shrunk from and opposed? The 
Gospel cheers us by unveiling our Heavenly Father 
now to the eye of faith, and promising that he shall 
break forth in unshrouded glory over all the earth 
hereafter. Only let us learn to know ourselves, 
and estimate aright the actual condition of man- 
kind, and the remedy which that condition needs 
and calls for ; and so shall we appreciate the worth 



PIETY IN GENERAL. O 

of the Revelation which is the supplement to that 
condition, the supply of that remedy, the answer 
to that call. 

And in the same proportion also shall we be led 
to understand the nature of the help which Chris- 
tianity supplies, and be convinced that, as our dis- 
ease is personal and moral, so must the remedy 
revealed be equally personal and moral. The truths 
of the Gospel become saving, — that is, effectual to 
deliver us from the state in which they find us, — 
only as they are brought to bear upon ourselves. 
The seed is given, indeed, from Heaven, but it is 
only as it takes root in the heart of man, and 
springs up in his character, that it can expand into 
everlasting life. 

And hence the infinite importance of personal 
Piety, as that without which all knowledge of 
Christian truth and all attempt at Christian duty 
will be ineffectual. There are, indeed, three grand 
classes of religious meditation; — the meditation, 
namely, on what has been done^br us, what must 
be done in us, and what should be done by us ; and 
these classes may be verbally distinguished into 
doctrinal, experimental, and practical ; but they 
are inseparable in fact ; for all true doctrine, expe- 
rience, and practice, are one and indivisible. And 
the connecting link, say rather the assimilating 
life, which effects this unity, resides in the middle 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 



term, — the experience of what must be done in us. 
Only persona] piety, (and by the word experience 
we mean personal piety in all its parts,) brings 
down general doctrine into individual application, 
and quickens notions into principles. And only 
personal piety can supply the life, the feeling, and 
the energy, by which consistent practice can be 
either fully purposed, or successfully pursued. 

How solemn, therefore, is the subject to which I 
would direct the attention of my reader in this book, 
and in the prosecution of which I would entreat the 
active and devout co-operation of his own mind ! 
Suffer me to begin, and carry it on throughout, with 
direct appeals to your personal sympathy. Join 
with me in frequent ejaculations for divine help and 
blessing. The topic is, beyond all others, devout 
and practical. Devoutly and practically let us 
enter on it. It concerns the soul of him who writes 
and him who reads. It can be realized only in and 
by our souls. Spiritual truth is but the seed of 
spiritual life. And though spiritual truth may be 
dropped into the mind by instruction from without 
us, spiritual life can be awakened only by an energy 
within us: by our meditating on the truths de- 
clared ; by our applying them to our particular state 
of heart ; by our brooding over them in our inmost 
soul ; above all, by prayerful seeking of the Spirit 
of life, — which is the Spirit of God, — to come and 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 7 

quicken them by warmth from heaven. O thou 
Lord and Giver of life, who art the Author of all 
godliness, vouchsafe thy presence and thy blessing 
to our united meditations ! Grant that he who 
writes and he who reads may feel the power of the 
truths which we consider together. Grant that 
what issues from the heart may reach the heart, 
that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may 
rejoice together ! 

Our first endeavour must be to attain a full per- 
ception of what we mean by Personal Piety : and 
therefore our First Part will enquire into the es- 
sence of the spiritual life. And then, since 
this life is a subject of inward experience, and re- 
veals itself in the consciousness by gradual mani- 
festations, our Second Part will trace the process 
of its developement. And further, since, like 
all life, it requires sustenance and is capable of 
increase and invigoration, our Third Part will indi- 
cate some of the principal means on which de- 
pend ITS NOURISHMENT AND GROWTH. 

And now then, in this First Part we address our- 
selves to the enquiry, What is the essence of the 

SPIRITUAL LIFE? 

We cannot meditate on the examples of pious 
men without perceiving in them one condition of 



8 PIETY IN GENERAL. 

mind which specially characterizes all God's chil- 
dren, and marks them for his own. It forms the 
family likeness by which they are distinguished, 
the common temper which, amidst every variety 
of character, makes them like each other and like 
their Father. By this, every servant of God in 
every age is assimilated to the whole body of the 
faithful; and it is because we sympathize with this, 
that a Noah, an Abraham, a David, an Isaiah, a 
Daniel, a Paul, widely different as they are in other 
respects, are felt to be our brethren ; and their 
writings touch the deepest and most secret springs 
of our nature, and express, in words more apt than 
we ourselves can form, the most intimate workings 
of our hearts. 

This common temper is expressed in Scripture 
by various terms. Sometimes it is called "the 
fear of God," — the bowing of the soul before invi- 
sible Authority. Sometimes, " the walking before 
God," — the having reference to his guidance in all 
our steps. Sometimes it is termed " Godliness," — 
the feeling that in God we live, and move, and 
have our being ; and " Devoutness," — the assidu- 
ous care* to cultivate his favour, and honour Him 
in all our ways. Sometimes again, it is called " the 
living to God," — the regulating our spirit and con- 
duct with reference to his will. And still further, to 

* EvXaSuu. See Luke ii. 25. 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 9 

express the freeness and spontaneousness of this 
life, — its welling forth from the hidden fountain of 
the heart as the unconstrained expression of an 
inward affection, it is specially denominated " the 
love of God." 

In all which Scripture terms we cannot but ob- 
serve one idea invariably recurring amidst the vari- 
ous shades of meaning, and forming, therefore, the 
common mark of Personal Piety, — the direction, 
namely, of the mind and heart towards God ; the 
turning to Him as the centre of our being, and of 
the sphere in which we live. The Spiritual life is 
emphatically a life in God, — flowing from Him as 
its source, and ever pressing upwards towards Him 
as its natural level. 

Such a life then is evidently distinct from, and 
over and above, the Knotvledge merely of doctrinal 
truths. For such knowledge, though essential to 
the purifying and the regulation of piety,, can by no 
means produce that piety, nor does it determine 
the degree in which that piety may exist. Very 
often is there manifested a deep devoutness even 
in the mere twilight of religious knowledge — a de- 
voutness which we should do well to cherish the 
more sedulously as that twilight brightens into 
broader day. For it will profit us little to enjoy 
the blaze of noon- tide illumination, if we have lost 
therein that thrilling awe of the Unseen which in 



10 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 



the dim religious light of earlier consciousness stole 
over us. To preserve the fresh and simple feelings 
of the child in union with the matured experience 
and attainments of the man, is the perfection of 
the human character. And to be ever children 
in spirit while in understanding we are men, is 
the perfection of religion. But, alas, this union is 
not necessarily maintained, nor do these elements 
expand in proportion to each other. We may see, 
on the contrary, in many instances — we may feel it 
in ourselves — a growing insight into Christian doc- 
trine, correction of early errors, acquaintance with 
new truths, or with more of the detail and connex- 
ion of old ones, an increasing clearness and har- 
mony of Theological system ; — and yet Piety, so 
far from growing in proportion to all this, not per- 
haps growing at all; nay, withering under the 
glare of this intenser light ; — the old simplicity of 
heart gone ; the old earnestness of spirit dead ; the 
fulness of the soul dried up ; the liquid dew and 
bloom of youthful feeling brushed away, and the 
life of our religion checked and fixed, if not de- 
stroyed. Reader, I entreat you, seek knowledge 
indeed; cultivate a just and rational Theology; en- 
deavour to attain increasing insight into religious 
truth ; but let all your knowledge be accompanied, 
be guarded, be impregnated, and quickened, by a 
living and life-giving Piety ! 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 11 

But this spiritual life is not less distinct from, 
and over and above, the Practice merely of moral 
duties. For here again, though pious feeling with- 
out holy practice is but a delusion of the stimu- 
lated sensibility, a product of the animal and not 
the spiritual life ; yet there may be much of out- 
ward practice, " works " of every kind, the bustle 
of an active and a showy doing, and yet no experi- 
ence, — or no proportionate experience, — of that in- 
ward spirit which supplies the proper motive of all 
true moral and religious observance. It is true in- 
deed,— it is never to be forgotten by us, — that by 
our fruits we must be known ; by the practical re- 
sults of knowledge and of feeling in the daily con- 
duct must our character be estimated both by our- 
selves and by the world. But then, equally true is 
it, and equally to be remembered, that not our 
separate acts, nor any series of acts, considered in 
themselves alone, but the general motives out of 
which all particular doings spring, and the pervad- 
ing spirit which determines and characterizes our 
habits, constitute the true and only moral worth 
of man. And when we see how almost every act, 
and course of conduct, may be the fruit of contrary 
principles, and imbued with contrary feelings, — the 
most dissimilar causes producing often the most 
similar effects, — we must acknowledge how very 
insufficient works are by themselves as proofs of 



12 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 



piety ; and how distinct from works is that devout- 
ness which nevertheless will impel the heart to 
their performance. O let not the man who finds 
himself, (or thinks he finds himself, for we too 
easily satisfy our conscience in these matters,) ful- 
filling many of the duties of his station, attending 
to the interests of his family, maintaining a good 
name in his business and his social circle, " doing 
as he would be done by," nay, adding to all this a 
recognition of the claims of religion, and an attend- 
ance on its public services, — let not such a man 
imagine that he has, therefore, necessarily, that in- 
ward piety which constitutes the spiritual life. 
Let him not be satisfied with what he may deno- 
minate effects, though all unconscious of the feel- 
ings which should be their cause. For piety is not 
some secret essence, the imagined base of sensible 
phenomena, while itself insensible : it is itself also a 
phenomenon, with marks and evidences of its own. 
It is ever found, indeed, in intimate connexion 
with external duties, but it must neither be con- 
founded with them, nor resolved into them. 

And this caution and distinction must be ex- 
tended even to specifically religious works ; — works 
done consciously and avowedly for God, and in his 
cause ; works of Christian charity and zeal ; the 
supporting of religious societies, the distribution of 
religious books, the communication of religious in- 
struction, the attending of religious meetings. All 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 13 

these things may be done, and yet they are not the 
measure of our piety ; nay, rather they too often 
overlay and crush that delicate spirit within us. 
Our inward spirituality may be decaying while our 
outward activity becomes the admiration of our fel- 
low men, — or of ourselves. The breathings of the 
spirit may be few and languid, while the pulsations 
of the animal life may be strong and frequent. We 
may be giving out supplies to men, but not drawing 
in supplies from God. Let us not forget these 
truths in this day of diseased activity. Let us 
pause frequently amidst the whirl of the machinery 
by which we are surrounded. Let us watch the 
spirit of our minds, — their bent and bias, their pri- 
vate aspirations, their deeper and more delicate 
breathings, — that our exertions may not be super- 
ficial or partial, the product of external stimulants 
only ; but flowing out of an interior life diffused 
equally and simultaneously through all the powers 
of our moral being. 

But let me not be mistaken here. Let me not 
be supposed, while indicating the distinction which 
seems to me to exist between Piety and the Know- 
ledge of Doctrine on the one hand, and the Prac- 
tice of Duty on the other, to concede for a moment 
that these several elements can be totally sepa- 
rated, or that a genuine piety can exist without 
some Knowledge to inform, and some Practice to 
express its presence. There is, indeed, a feeling 



14 PIETY IN GENERAL. 

but too frequently exhibited, which seems to bear 
some marks of true devoutness, and yet can co- 
exist with both the grossest superstition, and the 
idlest self-indulgence. But this feeling lies no 
deeper than the nervous system and the bodily 
temperament, and is no more than a general sus- 
ceptibility for the mysterious and the awful, with- 
out that intelligent and moral recognition of supe- 
rior authority as well as might, of holiness as well 
as love, which alone gives the thought of God an 
influence on the heart and life. " Religion, in 
Italy," says the unhappy Shelley, " is interwoven 
with the whole fabric of life. It is adoration, faith, 
submission, penitence, blind admiration, — not a rule 
for moral conduct. It has no necessary connexion 
with any one virtue. It pervades intensely the 
whole frame of society, and is, according to the 
temper of the mind which it inhabits, a passion, 
a persuasion, an excuse, a refuge, — never a check." 
And O that such were not sometimes too much the 
character of religion in England ! Do we not too 
often see at least some approximation to this awful 
delusion? Do we not meet with sensitive natures 
susceptible of deep impression from divine things, 
penetrated with the grandeur, the beauty, and the 
interest of religion, rapt into a reverie of adoration, 
and willing to dissolve themselves away in contem- 
plative emotion ; but when the call to Practice 
comes, the demand for solid, sober, resolute, per- 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 15 

severing contention with difficulty, and schooling of 
the heart, and toiling up the steep of moral excel- 
lence — " immediately they are offended." Nay, 
they will not only shrink from practice, but will 
denounce on principle, this moral energy. They 
canonize their sensations as the whole of piety. 
They undervalue painful duties as works of super- 
erogation and self-righteousness. They fall languid- 
ly into the arms of an enervating Theology, and ex- 
cuse their indolence under the name of spirituality, 
and their inconsistency under querulous bemoan- 
ings of indwelling sin. And then come the reve- 
ries of quietism, a passive yielding to the stream 
of outward circumstances, and the humours of the 
animal sensibility — an alternation of religious ague- 
fits, and in the end a mere voluptuous selfishness. 

Piety, then, is neither Knowledge merely of doc- 
trinal truth, nor Practice merely of moral duty : 
yet still less is it a blind, immoral Sensibility. This 
latter it excludes as spurious, and the former it 
accompanies as their sanctifier and their friend ; 
breathes over them a heavenly fragrance ; infuses 
into them spiritual life ; communicates to them a 
geniality, an earnestness, a glow of holiest feeling, 
and consecrates them to God. For piety is the 
sense of God — of his presence, his authority, his 
love, — pervading and ennobling the whole soul. 
It is the reference to Him of all we know, and the 
doing for Him of all we do. It is the holding his 



16 PIETY IN GENERAL. 

idea in our mind, as the central light in which 
alone all other objects can be truly seen and fitly 
estimated. It is the enshrining his character in 
our heart, as the model of all excellence, the object 
of all admiration and affection and devotedness. 
And it is the enthroning his authority in our will, 
as the Observer, the Ruler, and the Judge of all our 
purposes. 

And O the blessedness of such a sense of God! 
the peace that passeth understanding which re- 
sults from referring all things to God, leaving all 
things with God, enjoying all things in God, com- 
muning with God, leaning upon God, feeling un- 
derneath us the everlasting arms of God ! It is 
this which makes all Nature, Providence, and Mind, 
full of life, and instinct with Deity — " Him first, 
him midst, him last, and without end ;" — which 
assures us, not only that there is a God, (a cold, 
inoperative thought, a speculation merely,) but 
that this God is present in and with his works, so 
that not one of the phenomena of nature, nor of 
the events of life, nor of the workings of the mind, 
but pre-suppose and point to him, as the cause of 
all causation, the law-giver of every law, the prime- 
mover of all movement, the life of all life. 

Do we contemplate the very simplest causes 
manifested in the sphere of nature — or make our 
way through all the combinations of a complicated 
work, — or ascend from one step to another, through 



PIETY IN GENERAL. 17 

a long series of results, till we arrive at general or 
apparently ultimate laws ? — still, in the centre of 
all this complication, and as the law of these laws, 
the devout man ever recognizes God. 

Or do we turn to the manifold, perplexed events 
of human life, — the fortunes of individuals, the 
revolutions of society, the rise and fall of king- 
doms, the whole mysterious story of the world ? 
Here equally does piety behold a present God. 
Not merely in single, strange events, where only 
one immediate step is traceable from the visible 
effect to the invisible cause, but in every circum- 
stance and every long and twisted chain of circum- 
stances, where the instruments are more numerous 
and evident, and where, from being able to account 
for much, men cheat themselves with the assump- 
tion that they have accounted for everything. For 
the pious man knows that to God nothing is little 
because nothing is great, nothing is ordinary be- 
cause nothing is strange ; and he therefore re- 
cognizes His hand as quickly, and adores it as pro- 
foundly, in the most usual occurrences of life, as 
the ignorant and earthly-minded in the most mi- 
raculous. 

And not less in the workings of the human mind, 
— the conclusions of the understanding, the dis- 
coveries of the reason, the determinations of the will, 
the whole formation of the spirit from earliest in- 

c 



18 PIETY IN GENERAL. 

fancy to any given moment of its being, — the devout 
man recognizes God. Be his thoughts and their 
connexion traceable, or be they not ; can he refer 
to the origin of his conceptions and the ground of 
his decisions, or can he not ; this, at least, he can 
refer to as the source of all that bears the stamp 
of good within him, — God. God, by whose power 
he was made and is sustained, in whose world he 
lives, by whose creatures he is acted on, by whose 
Spirit he is illuminated, comforted, and strengthen- 
ed, and who " worketh in him both to will and to do 
of his own good pleasure/' O the wondrous pre- 
sence of God in all things, and of all things to God ! 
O the mysterious breathing of his Spirit through 
the universe, quickening, sustaining, informing, 
actuating the stupendous whole I 

" Surrounded by His power we stand, 
On every side we feel his hand ; 
O skill for human reach too high, 
Too dazzling bright for mortal eye !" 

O thou Father of our spirits, by whose inspiration 
only we can know and love thee, draw us by these 
meditations to thyself! wake up the diviner parti- 
cle within our souls, arouse the slumbering chords 
of piety in our hearts, and sweep across them by 
thy powerful yet gentle Spirit, till they thrill in 
trembling sympathy, responsive to thy touch, and 
vocal in thy praise ! 



19 



CHAPTER II. 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 



Piety, we have seen, is the sense of God ; the 
feeling of the absolute dependance of ourselves and 
of the universe upon unseen Power and Authority ; 

" A sense o'er all the soul imprest 
That we are weak, but not unblest, 
Since in us, round us, everywhere, 
Eternal strength and wisdom are." * 

But in calling this experience a " sense," and a 
" feeling," it must be remembered that we mean 
thereby a state of mind essentially different from 
the impulses of sensation, and the passing humours 
and emotions of sensibility; a state analogous to 
that which we experience in contemplating the 
true, the noble, the beautiful, and the good, where- 
in the soul is elevated above itself, absorbed in the 
objects which attract its gaze, and roused from the 
cool indifference of mere observation into the earn- 
estness of personal interest. 

* Coleridge. 



20 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 

Yet this very feeling of personal interest in the 
idea of God, this very sense of a relation of that 
God to us and our well-being, which constitutes 
the life of Piety, must bring with it an awe, a 
shrinking of the mind before superior might, in' 
proportion as we feel the greatness of the Being 
with whom we have to do. The same works 
and ways which excite in us veneration of a 
supreme Creator and Ordainer, humble us at the 
same time with the painful sense of our own ex- 
ceeding littleness. As our conception of God ex- 
pands, our conception of man contracts. The 
higher we lift our eyes towards heaven, the lower 
we sink in our own esteem. And Veneration 
therefore, by itself alone, takes the form of dread. 
Piety manifests itself as superstition. The sense 
of God lies like a heavy weight upon the soul, 
and crushes it down into abjectness. If we regard 
ourselves as only parts, — and most insignificant 
parts, — of the vast creation which he grasps within 
the hollow of his hand ; as portions of that endless 
chain of which each link is reciprocally cause and 
effect, — effect and cause; as fleeting beings of a 
day, tossed for a few short moments to the surface 
of a troubled ocean, and then absorbed again into 
its bosom ; the creatures of necessity, the sport of 
fate ; — then the more we recognize the might which 
compresses us, the impulse which sweeps us on- 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 



21 



ward, the irresistible energy which seems to dash 
the several elements of being one against another, 
the more does our sense of dependance become op- 
pressive, and we crouch before the Invisible as a 
slave before his master, a captive before his con- 
queror. Hence the costly expiations by which the 
terrified savage endeavours to propitiate the spirit 
of the storm, the demon of the various ills in which 
he is involved. Hence the trembling awe with 
which the more enlightened Greek contemplated 
the march of inexorable fate, and whispered to 
himself, " O never may my spirit dare to set itself 
against His stern decrees!" Hence the "fear 
which hath torment," into which even the mind of 
Job began to sink when he mused on his calamities 
and exclaimed, " He breaketh me with a tempest, 
he multiplieth my wounds without cause ; let him 
take his rod away from me, and let not his fear ter- 
rify me. Is it good to thee that thou shouldst op- 
press, that thou shouldst despise the work of thine 
hands ?" And hence, " the spirit of bondage," 
which made the Israelites " remove and stand far 
off from God," and cry to Moses, " Speak thou with 
us and we will hear, but let not God speak with 
us lest we die." When we bring together in our 
mind the greatness of God, and the littleness of 
man, we feel that we must be at an immeasurable 
distance from him ; that there can be no recipro- 



22 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 

city, no communion, no friendship, no affinity be- 
tween the Strong and the feeble ; the Everlasting 
and the momentary, the tremendous Creator and 
the abject creature. " The consideration of na- 
ture," says Neander, in his History of the Church, 
" raised, indeed, in the minds of thinking men, the 
dim suspicion of an infinite and Almighty Spirit, 
not to be judged of by the limits of the human 
understanding. But this sense of Deity did not 
strengthen, elevate, or animate their minds, but 
rather abased and prostrated them, for there was 
involved in it the accompanying sense of their 
own littleness and nothingness, and they knew no 
mediating truth by which these two conflicting 
feelings might be reconciled and held together in 
peace. They saw nothing but the gulph which 
stretched between the finite and the Infinite, the 
mortal and the Immortal, the Almighty and the 
impotent ; and they knew no means by which that 
gulph might be filled up. The God whom they 
imagined to themselves was only a being elevated 
infinitely above degraded man, not a being related 
to him, inviting him to his bosom, nay, stooping 
condescendingly to his infirmities. Only the Ma- 
jesty, not the Sanctity, nor the Love of God, filled 
their souls." 

Some other element, therefore, besides the fear 
of God's authority, and the recognition of his ever- 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 23 

present working, is essential to a healthy piety. 
The sense not only of dependance and subjection, 
but of affinity and friendship ; the spirit not of a 
slave, but of a child ; the knowledge not of one who 
looks on merely, on the workings of a stranger, but 
who communes with, and enters into, the mind and 
purpose of a friend. We must know God not as 
our Creator only, and our Governor, but as our 
Father ; not as above us only, but within us ; as 
connected with us, not merely as he is connected 
with unconscious matter or unreasoning life, but 
as a parent with his offspring, as mind with mind 
and soul with soul. 

And this is just that other element of Piety 
which revelation supplies, and which Christianity 
makes alive and predominant within the heart. 
The Scripture doctrine of the origin, the nature, 
and the destiny of man, and the Scripture pro- 
mises of the spirit which the Gospel shall infuse 
into him, exactly meet the difficulty, answer 
the demand,, and do away the terrors, of natural 
Piety. They afford the supplement it needs : the 
reconciling truth, the animating assurance, the 
new-creating life, which tempers veneration with 
love, abasement with elevation, and sacred awe 
with filial confidence. Him whom we ignorantly 
worship they declare to us. God that made the 
world and all things therein, they proclaim to be 



24 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 

not far from every one of us, for we are his off- 
spring. 

For it is carefully to be noted that the Scripture 
doctrine concerning man takes him out of the me- 
chanism of material things, and elevates him far 
above the rank of a mere animal creature into that 
of a son of God. All things were made by God; 
but man, we are told by revelation, was made, 
moreover, like God. All other living creatures the 
earth brought forth at God's command, but con- 
cerning man He said, " Let us make man in our 
own image, after our likeness ;" and though his 
body was formed of the dust of the ground, yet 
his soul was breathed into him by the Spirit of 
God. " The Spirit of God," says Job, " hath 
made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath 
given me life." " The dust, indeed," says Solo- 
mon, " shall return to the earth as it was ; but the 
spirit shall return to God who gave it." " He," 
says St. Paul, " is the Father of spirits." And it is 
the great object of that Apostle in his address to 
the Athenians, to raise their minds above the 
grossness of idolatry by reminding them that God 
was to be found, not around them and above them 
only, but within them, in their own souls, " for in 
him we live and move, and have our being, and we 
are all his offspring," — of his race, bearing affinity 
to him, so as no material things can do, partakers 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 25 

of his spirituality, and the image of his eternity. 
Which truth is expressed by St. Luke, when he 
calls Adam the son of God ; and is constantly 
brought before us by our Lord, by the favourite 
appellation which he uses, and encourages his fol- 
lowers to use, for God ; " your Father," — " your 
heavenly Father.'* 

In the consciousness, then, of this relationship to 
God — the assurance that we are not the mere insects 
of a moment, and of the race of earth alone, but 
members of that whole family in heaven and earth, 
which constitutes the intellectual sphere in which 
the Father of spirits dwells, — in this assurance, and 
in the elevation of mind, the expansion of heart, 
the energy of will which it inspires, consists the 
proper piety of man — that piety which connects us 
in heart and will with the God whom we adore, 
and has its conversation in heaven as its home, and 
brings us to dwell in God and God in us. With 
this Adam was created, and this he enjoyed when 
God communed with him in the holy garden, and 
the divine wisdom rejoiced in the habitable part of 
the earth, and her delights were with the sons of 
men. And this, Jesus, the second Adam, exhibited 
in all its quiet grandeur, when he walked in uninter- 
rupted communion with his Father, and the angels 
of God ascended and descended upon the Son of 
man, and though he had come down from heaven 



26 CHRISTIAN PIETY. 

he was still " in heaven," speaking and acting not 
of himself, but by the Father that dwelt in him, 
and being " not alone, because the Father was 
with him." 

But in Adam, from the moment of his fall, and 
in every child of Adam, naturally born of him, this 
blessed consciousness of relationship to God was 
lost, and is destroyed. Brought under the domi- 
nion of sense, the life of the spirit was smothered. 
Entering into connexion with the evil one, the 
connexion with God was broken off. A sense of 
distance, alienation, strangeness, has taken the place 
of filial confidence ; and that bodily expulsion from 
the garden of God's presence, is but a type of 
the estrangement of mind, and separation of heart 
from God, in which man now is born, and lives, 
— and dies, except there come upon him new life 
from above, a new infusion of the Spirit that he 
has lost. The knowledge of God is no longer 
the love of God : the recognition of his presence 
is not naturally delight in that presence : the 
sense of our relation to Him as his creatures, is 
not the sense of union and communion with Him 
as his children. Born of the flesh, we are flesh : 
children of this world, we have no taste for a 
higher : familiar but too soon with sin, and weigh- 
ed down with a consciousness of guilt, we shrink 
from contact with the Holy One, and dare not 
draw near to the Just One. 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 27 

And therefore now, true filial Piety is not of 
spontaneous growth in man, will not develope 
itself by the natural expansion of the mind. The 
principle of it is effete, and must again be quick- 
ened from above. We must be born of the 
Spirit before we can become Spirit. We must 
be invited, encouraged, drawn by God, before 
we shall regard him as our Father and return to 
his bosom. The necessity for union with him still 
exists. The want of that union is the cause of 
that aching void and restless craving which all 
men feel, they know not why : for none but God 
can fill the soul of man. But the full conscious- 
ness of this want, the knowledge of the means by 
which it may be supplied, even the desire itself 
for that supply, these must come from God. And 
to produce these He has revealed himself. He 
has broken the awful silence in which he stands 
wrapped up in nature. He has condescended to 
explain himself in words of truth and love, by the 
patriarchs, by Moses, by the prophets, by his own 
beloved Son. " God, who at sundry times, and in 
divers manners, spake in times past to our fathers 
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken 
unto us by his Son." The intercourse which sin 
had interrupted has been gradually renewed. Hea- 
ven has been opened. The Spirit of God has de- 
scended. The soul of man has been raised to- 
wards him from whom it sprang. Ideas of heavenly 



28 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 



origin have been implanted in him, and they have 
borne him upwards towards their native sphere ; 
feelings and purposes have been awakened 

" Whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 

That they were born for immortality." 

O the wondrous condescension of our Father, — 
to come down to us in our low estate, to seek us in 
our banishment, to knit again the links which we 
had rudely torn asunder ; to " speak unto us, rising 
up early and speaking;" to "send to us all his 
servants the prophets, rising up early and sending 
them, though we hearkened not unto his voice ;" 
and then to manifest himself in all his fulness in 
the person of his own beloved Son, that " as many 
as receive him may have privilege to become the 
sons of God," and " whosoever loveth the Son and 
keepeth his words the Father may love him, and 
come to him and make his abode with him !" This 
is the consummation which was predicted by the 
prophets, announced by John the Baptist as the 
special benefit of Christianity, promised by Jesus 
as the consequence of his exaltation, and actually 
bestowed by him on his disciples as the seed of 
eternal life, and the earnest of the inheritance 
of the saints in light. The Spirit of God creates 
us again after the divine image and makes us par- 
takers of the divine nature, and thus becomes the 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 29 

spirit of filial piety, — the spirit of adoption where- 
by we cry Abba, Father, — this spirit itself bearing 
witness with our spirit that we are the children 
of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God, 
and joint heirs with Christ ! 

Reader, let me ask you, do you feel your need 
of this re-union with the Father of your spirit? 
Are you led by all the outward manifestations of 
his power and his kindness, to seek the Lord if 
haply you may feel after him and find him, there, 
from whence he is not far, within yourself ? Do 
you feel that the human heart was made for God, 
and cannot be in peace till it has become acquaint- 
ed with him, and yielded up to him its trust, its 
love, its tenderest devotion ? Then will you be 
prepared to trace with me the gracious promises 
which he has given of this inward life, the me- 
thod of its developement, the means of its nourish- 
ment and growth, till you exclaim with David in 
the consciousness of its actual enjoyment, " Whom 
have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon 
earth that I desire beside Thee ! My flesh and my 
heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, 
and my portion for ever !" 



30 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MANIFESTATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PIETY. 

We have seen that the inward life of Piety finds 
its due developement only in the form of filial con- 
fidence towards God, and that this filial confidence 
is the product of that revelation of his character 
and infusion of his Spirit into the heart, which 
Christianity — and Christianity alone — affords. For, 
as the leading Idea of Christianity, as indicated by 
its one specific term, " The Gospel," is the procla- 
mation of inheritance in the kingdom of God ; so 
the distinctive Benefit of Christianity, which by 
that proclamation it produces in the heart of its 
recipients, is similarly indicated by one specific 
term, "The Spirit;" the communication of that 
filial disposition towards God, which is at once the 
indispensable qualification for that inheritance, and 
the certain pledge of its ultimate possession. This 
is that " promise of the Father," that gift of God, 
which the prophets predicted, and the Baptist 
pointed to, and Jesus actually conferred on his dis- 
ciples, as the seal of their adoption, the earnest of 
their inheritance, until the redemption of the pur- 



THE MANIFESTATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PIETY. 31 

chased possession. And it is important, therefore, 
to consider some of the Scripture declarations con- 
cerning this gift, that we may learn both how uni- 
formly it is marked out as the special privilege of 
Christianity, and what are the chief manifestations 
of its presence in the heart. 

And here we must begin with the predictions of 
the Old Testament Prophets. For all the revelations 
of God are closely connected with each other, and 
no one of them, therefore, can be fully understood 
without reference to the rest. Judaism can be 
rightly estimated only when viewed as anticipative 
of Christianity, and Christianity has no meaning 
but as the product and consummation of Judaism. 
The Old Testament and the New are but different 
chapters in the one book of God, and in the former 
do we find the seeds of those divine ideas which in 
the latter are developed into full expansion. " I 
am not come," said Jesus, " to destroy the law and 
the prophets, but to fulfil them." 

Turning then, in the first place, to the prophet 
Isaiah, we shall find him, in the 44th chapter of 
his book, predicting as the special blessing which 
God designed to bestow upon his people in the 
times of the Messiah, the outpouring of his Spirit. 
" I will pour water upon him that is thirsty," he 
declares in verses 3 — 5, " and floods upon the dry 
ground ; I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and 



32 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 

my blessing upon thine offspring ; and they shall 
spring up as among the grass, as willows by the 
water-courses. One shall say, I am the Lord's ; 
and another shall call himself by the name of 
Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand 
unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name 
of Israel." Where you observe, first, that the 
particular character under which the Spirit is pro- 
mised, is that of refreshment, and new life. As 
the rain upon the parched ground, which makes 
all things spring up as it were from death, so 
is the Spirit of God to the heart of man; the 
source of vital energy ; " the Lord and Giver 
of life" as the Nicene Creed denominates him. 
In proportion as his influences are restrained, all 
things languish : in proportion as they are again 
poured forth, all things are revived, and germi- 
nate, and blossom into blessedness. Which ger- 
minating of the heart, you will observe, secondly, 
is placed in the developement of moral affections 
towards God. " One shall say, I am the Lord's — 
and another shall subscribe with his hand unto 
the Lord ;" — the first manifestation of spiritual 
life shall be entire self-consecration and devotedness 
to God. 

And this characteristic of inward life is still 
more fully exhibited in a further prediction of the 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 33 

Spirit, which is given by Ezekiel in his 36th chap- 
ter, verses 23 — 27. For therein God promises, in 
connexion with his pardoning compassion and re- 
covery of his people, " A new heart also will I 
give you, and a new Spirit will I put within you ; 
and I will take away the ston}' heart out of your 
flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh ; and I 
will put my spirit within you, and cause you to 
walk in my statutes and keep my judgments and 
do them." Where you perceive that the Spirit of 
God is promised as something altogether " new," 
and different from that which hitherto had actuated 
the Jews, impelling them to love and keep those 
laws which they had hitherto so uniformly broken. 
It is the Spirit of a child tenderly susceptible of 
his Father's influence, and sensitive to his opinion, 
(instead of hardening himself against it,) and vo- 
luntarily walking in the path which he points out. 
God himself in the heart, his will made our own, 
and animating and directing all we think and do. 

But, next, the Spirit is promised by the Pro- 
phets as the source of intimate communion and 
intercourse with God. This characteristic is dis- 
tinctly commemorated by the Prophet Joel, (ii. 
28, 29,) as the special privilege of the times of 
the Messiah. " It shall come to pass afterward," 
(that is, in the last days, the days of the Christ,) 



34 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 

" that I will pour out . my Spirit upon all flesh, 
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 
your old men shall dream dreams, your young 
men shall see visions ; and also upon the ser- 
vants and upon the handmaids in those days will 
I pour out my Spirit." Where the essence of 
the promise is the same with those in Isaiah and 
Ezekiel, but the characteristic of inward spiritual 
life is more strongly marked, by reference to what 
had hitherto constituted the privilege of a pecu- 
liar class of men. In those days, says Joel, not 
the prophetic class alone, not any one particular 
rank, or sex, or age, but all shall prophesy — that 
is, shall have the Spirit of a Prophet, the Spirit of 
Wisdom, Piety, and Zeal, for God. Just as Isaiah 
had proclaimed of these same times. "All thy 
children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall 
be the peace of thy children." And Jeremiah more 
diffusely : " After those days, saith the Lord, I will 
put my law in their inward parts, and write it in 
their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall 
be my people, and they shall teach no more every 
man his neighbour, saying, Know the Lord, for they 
shall all know me, from the least of them unto the 
greatest of them, saith the Lord." All that insight 
into God's truth, and acquaintance with his will, and 
communion with his Spirit, which has been hitherto 
vouchsafed, and that by measure only, and occa- 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 35 

sionally, to some few favoured men, by dreams 
and visions, shall then be diffused, copiously and 
ordinarily, by the teaching and the influences of a 
common Spirit, through all the people of God. The 
inward judgment shall direct, the inward con- 
science shall control, the inward life of communion 
with the Father shall animate and strengthen. 
They shall have fulfilled in them the generous wish 
of Moses : — " Would God that all the Lord's peo- 
ple were prophets, and that the Lord would put his 
Spirit upon them." They shall possess, what St. 
John describes as actually enjoyed by those to 
whom he writes, " an unction from the Holy One, 
and know all things ; and the anointing which 
they receive of Him shall abide in them, and 
they need not that any man should teach them, 
but as the same anointing teacheth them of all things, 
and is truth, and is no lie, they shall abide in 
Him." This is the Spirit which is predicted by 
the Prophets as the glory of the Gospel times, and 
which the Christian therefore is to seek for and to 
cultivate, as his special privilege ; — the Spirit of in- 
tercourse with God, of friendship, freedom, lifting up 
of heart, which the Prophets were endowed with. 
That state of mind which rises above the world, 
not that it may disdainfully spurn that world away 
as unworthy of its care, but that it may inhale 
from the purer atmosphere into which it soars, 



36 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 

all the wisdom, energy, and courage which may en- 
able it to act the most effectually with and for that 
world. That spirit which is fruitful in all holy cogi- 
tations and majestic purposes ; which views all things 
round us with serenity and hopefulness, because it 
views them in God ; and which works on all things 
round us with patience and efficiency, because it 
works by God. That far-seeing glance into futurity, 
that calm anticipation of success, that quiet consci- 
ousness of heavenly strength, which makes us ever 
earnest, but never anxious ; ever diligent, but never 
bustling ; ever vigorous, but never violent ; ever 
bold, but never rash ; ever strenuous for God, but 
never exhausted and convulsed by overstrained en- 
deavour. O for this quiet, yet all-powerful life 
within our souls ! O for the breath of God diffused 
through every faculty, and his " saving health" re- 
animating every power, that we may live in the 
Spirit, be led by the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, be 
strengthened with all might by the Spirit in the 
inner man ! 

But if we go on now to the New Testament, we 
find John the Baptist promising this Spirit, farther, 
as the source of Peace and Joy in God. The peni- 
tents who come to him confessing their sins, he 
cheers with the assurance of a blessing far superior 
to anything that he can convey to them. " I in- 
deed baptize you with water, but one mightier than 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 37 

I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not wor- 
thy to unloose ; he shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost, and with fire." Where, observe the con- 
trast which the Baptist intimates between the bap- 
tism of Repentance, which he administered, and the 
baptism of the Spirit, which it was the prerogative 
of the Christ alone to vouchsafe. Repentance is 
negative. The Holy Ghost is positive. The one 
is the renunciation of evil ; the other, the attain- 
ment of good. The one breaks off friendship and 
communion with the world ; the other realizes 
friendship and communion with God. The one is 
a spirit of sorrow, and self-reproach ; the other is a 
spirit of confidence, and peace. The one strug- 
gles up towards God ; the other walks along with 
God. The one is as the crisis of our spiritual disease, 
an anxious moment of revulsion and of effort ; the 
other is the restoration to spiritual health, when the 
blessed air of heaven plays upon the soul, and 
there is felt a buoyancy, a lightness, a balanced 
harmony of conscious blessedness which none 
can understand but those who feel it, and none 
can tell or can convey to ethers even when they 
feel. Then does the inward spirit begin to breathe. 
Then do the shackles of the sense relax them- 
selves, and the iron band which had so long re- 
pressed the aspirations of the soul towards God 
is burst asunder, and a stream of hopeful heavenly 



38 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 

affections sweeps joyously along, and the light of 
heaven plays upon it, and it sparkles under the 
approving glance of God, and it spreads through 
every thought, and refreshes into gladness and 
beauty every region of the soul. " He that drink- 
eth of the water that I shall give him," says our 
Lord, " shall never thirst, but the water that I 
shall give him shall be in him a well of water 
springing up into everlasting life." " He that be- 
lieveth on me," he says again, " from his belly," — 
i. e. from within himself, not from outward sources 
which may be soon dried up, but from the living 
spring which shall be unlocked within his soul, (as 
Solomon means when he declares, ' the good man 
shall be satisfied from himself,') — " from his inmost 
being, there shall flow out rivers of living water." 
" And this," says St. John, " spake he of the 
Spirit which they that believe on him should re- 
ceive." — Have you this Spirit, Christian Reader ? 
Is this the characteristic of your Piety ? Have you 
got beyond the fitful alternations, the painful 
struggles, the remorseful anguish, the " fear which 
hath torment" of an always renewing but never 
perfected Repentance, of a conscience too enlight- 
ened to slumber, yet too irresolute to spring up for 
God, into that " righteousness, and peace, and 
joy, in the Holy Ghost," which Christ came into 
the world, and died, and rose again, and ascended 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 39 

I 

up to heaven, to procure and to communicate to 
miserable man ? Are you still groping amidst the 
chilling mists which brood over the valley of humi- 
liation, which truly is the valley of the shadow of 
death; or have you reached the open heights of 
faith, and emerged into the light and life of the 
Divine favour as it shines forth in the face of Jesus 
Christ? These are no unimportant questions. They 
affect not our comfort merely. They affect the 
very essence of our piety ; our growth in holiness ; 
our usefulness among our fellow men ; our power 
to glorify our Father, and to adorn the doctrine of 
God our Saviour in all things. Religion without 
this Baptism of the Holy Ghost is but the terrific 
gloom of superstition. It is at best but the trem- 
bling awe of Judaism. It is but the tempest and 
the whirlwind, and the blackness and the flame : — 
we need the calm outshining of the sun upon the 
desolated scene, illuminating all things with a tran- 
quil radiance. It is but the strong wind, and the 
earthquake, and the fire, which awake and make 
attent the awe-struck spirit: — we need the still 
small voice of friendly communing with God. 
God, grant us to derive from Christianity all that it 
can convey ! To receive from Jesus all that he 
was exalted to bestow ! Grant that we may be 
" filled with the Spirit, speaking to ourselves in 
psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing 



40 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 

and making melody in our hearts unto the Lord, 
giving thanks always for all things unto God 
and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ !" 

For thus shall we experience this same Spirit of 
devotedness to God — and intercourse with God — 
and peace with God — to be moreover a Spirit of 
power for God. " He shall baptize you," says the 
Baptist, " with the Holy Ghost and with fire" 
Which image, I need scarcely remind you, has 
ever been a favourite one in every language to ex- 
press that inward ardour of mind which cannot be 
restrained, but bursts forth into fervent words and 
deeds. Thus we find it used in one author to de- 
note the energy of genius : " He was all spirit, all 
lire ;" — in another, that of poetic impulse — " Thou 
canst not be idle if thou wouldst ; thy noble quali- 
ties are like a fire burning within, and compel thee 
to pour thyself out in music and in song." And in 
Scripture it expresses both, generally, any strong 
emotion ; as inXuke xxiv. 32 : " Did not our heart 
burn within us, while he talked with us by the way 
and opened to us the Scriptures ?" and in Psalm 
xxxix. 3 : " My heart was hot within me ; while I 
was musing the fire kindled, and at the last I spake 
with my tongue ;"— and, more particularly, the im- 
pulse of the prophetic inspiration ; as in Jeremiah 
xx. 8, 9 ; where the Prophet declares, " The word 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 41 

of the Lord was made a reproach unto me and a 
derision daily," — my testimony for God was turned 
into ridicule, — " and then I said, I will not make 
mention of him nor speak any more in his name ;" 
— I was tempted to shrink from standing up for 
God — " but his word was in mine heart as a burn- 
ing fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with 
forbearing and I could not stay ;" — the Spirit of God 
within me could not be repressed ; it would burst 
forth in word and act. 

And therefore, since the promised Spirit of 
Christianity is, as we have learned from Joel, the 
Spirit of a Prophet, full of the divine influence, by 
this same image does the Baptist express its pre- 
sence and power ; " He shall baptize you with the 
Holy Ghost, which shall be quick and active in you 
as a secret fire."* Just as it was found to be by 
the disciples on the day of Pentecost, when there 
came a rushing mighty wind, (the symbol of the 
Spirit's life-giving breath,) and there appeared to 
them lambent flames of fire, (the symbol of his ar- 
dent energy,) and they were filled with the Holy 
Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as 
the Spirit moved them to proclaim the wondrous 

* Per ignem intelligitur vigor evangelicae gratiae, qui intus 
datur, cum Judaici ritus fuerint frigidi. Ignis enim inter omnia 
elementa maximam habet agilitatem, omnia in se transformans, 
ac sursum rapiens. — Erasmus. 



42 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 

works of God. Just as St. Paul would have it to 
exist within the heart of every Christian, when he 
exhorts the Thessalonians, — " Quench not the Spi- 
rit," — do not smother and put out his sacred fire ; 
and the Romans, " Be ye fervent in spirit, serving 
the Lord :" and the sluggish Timothy ; " Stir up," 
— rouse into a flame, — " the gift of God which is in 
thee by the putting on of my hands ; for God hath 
not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and 
of love, and of a sound {a healthy and vigorous) 
mind." 

This, then, is that Power of the Holy Ghost 
which, as our Homily for Whitsunday declares, 
" openeth the mouth to declare the mighty works 
of God, engendereth a burning zeal towards God's 
word, and giveth all men a tongue, yea, and a fiery 
tongue, so that they may boldly and cheerfully 
profess the truth in the face of the whole world." 
This is that divine enthusiasm, without which no 
man was ever great or good, which alone produces 
noble thoughts and noble deeds. This gave a 
sacred dignity to St. Peter on the day of Pentecost, 
when he rose up and exclaimed before them all, 
" These are not drunken as you suppose, but this 
is that which Joel spake of, when he said, ' I will 
pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.' " This put force 
and efficacy into his address when he declared, 
" Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 43 

God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have 
crucified, both Lord and Christ ;" and when they 
heard this they were pricked to the heart, and 
there were added to the church three thousand 
souls. This, again, endued the disciples with a 
calm and modest bravery, when they said to the 
assembly of the rulers, " Whether it be right in 
the sight of God to hearken unto you more than 
unto God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the 
things which we have seen and heard." This filled 
their hearts with power from on high when they 
prayed and said, " Now, Lord, behold their threat- 
enings, and grant unto thy servants that with all 
boldness they may speak thy word ; and when they 
had prayed the place was shaken where they were 
assembled together, and they were all filled with 
the Holy Ghost, and spake the word of God with 
boldness." This stirred itself in Stephen when he 
" being full of the Holy Ghost looked up steadfastly 
into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus 
standing on the right hand of God." This ani- 
mated Paul when he exclaimed to the Ephesians, 
" None of these things move me, neither count I 
my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my 
course with joy, and the ministry that I have re- 
ceived of the Lord Jesus to testify the Gospel of 
the grace of God." This invested him with dig- 
nity and grace when he declared before the hea- 



44 THE MANIFESTATIONS OF 

then governor, " I am not mad, most noble Festus, 
but show forth the words of truth and soberness ;" 
and when he cried to the terrified mariners, " Sirs, 
I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there stood 
by me this night the angel of God, whose I am and 
whom I serve." And this manifested all its fervour 
in him among the Corinthians, when, though he was 
with them, " in weakness and in fear, and in much 
trembling, his speech and his preaching was in de- 
monstration of the Spirit and of power." 

Nor was this power of the Holy Ghost less pre- 
sent and effectual in subsequent ages of the church. 
" Give me a man," says Lactantius, " passionate, 
headstrong, and unruly — by the words of God he 
shall become gentle as a lamb. Give me a greedy, 
covetous, and churlish man— he shall become a ge- 
nerous creature, full of rich benevolence. Give me 
a cruel and blood-thirsty man — he shall put on a 
mild and gracious spirit. Give me a dishonest 
man, a foolish man, a sensual man — he shall be 
made honest, wise, and virtuous." " Hear," says 
St. Cyprian, " that which is felt before it is learnt, 
that which is not collected together by long study, 
but which is received by the power of grace. While 
I lay in darkness, driven about by the waves of this 
world, a stranger to truth and light, that which the 
Divine mercy promised for my salvation seemed to 
me altogether hard and difficult ; namely, that a man 



CHRISTIAN PIETY. 45 

should be born again, and laying aside what he had 
once been, should become in soul and mind a dif- 
ferent man. How, said I, is so great a change 
possible ? That what so long had taken root should 
be done away ? And thus entangled in my errors 
I believed there could be no deliverance ; and while 
I despaired of amendment, I gave myself up to all 
my vices as if they had been a part of myself. But 
when, the water of regeneration having washed 
away the stains of my former life, the light from 
above shed itself into a heart freed from guilt and 
purified; when the Spirit from heaven had been 
breathed into me and formed me by a second birth 
into a new man ; then most wonderfully that be- 
came certain to me which had been doubtful be- 
fore ; that was open which had been closed ; that 
became easy which had been difficult ; that became 
practicable which before had been impossible ; so 
that the life which I have now begun to lead is the 
beginning of a life proceeding from God, a life pro- 
duced and quickened by the Holy Ghost. From 
God, I say, from God is all our might, and from 
Him do we receive all life and power f" 

And where then is this mighty Spirit now? 
Where are these thoughts that breathe and words 
that burn ? Where is that calm yet vigorous, 
quiet yet effective, meek yet manly energy, which 
was predicted by the Prophets, promised by the 



46 MANIFESTATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PIETY. 

Baptist, and given by the risen Jesus to his Apos- 
tles and his Church ? Woe, woe unto us, for we 
have sinned ! We have been careless of the sacred 
fire, — we have suffered the holy flame to quiver 
and to sink upon the altar of our hearts, — and we 
are cold, and dull, and dead ! O for life and power 
from on high ! O to join the church continually 
in the aspirations of her ordination hymn, — 

" Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, 
And lighten with celestial fire ! 
Thy blessed unction from above, 

Is comfort, life, and fire of love !" 



PART II. 



THE DEVELOPEMENT 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



They which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be 
called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due 
season : they through grace obey the calling : they be justified 
freely : they be made sons of God by adoption : they be made 
like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ : they walk 
religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they 
attain to everlasting felicity. 

Article XVII. 



Bonus vir sine Deo nemo est. An potest aliquis supra for- 
tunam nisi ab illo adjutus, exsurgere 1 Ille dat consilia magni- 
fica et erecta. In unoquoque virorum bonorum habitat Deus. — 
Animum excellentern ccelestis potentia agitat. Non potest res 
tanta sine adminiculo numinis stare. Seneca. 

A good man is the work of God ; for how can any one rise 
above the influence of outward things without his help 1 He is 
the source of all magnificent and elevated thoughts. He dwells 
in the heart of every one that is good. The virtuous mind is ac- 
tuated by a heavenly influence ; for only by the help of God can 
such a mind be formed. 



49 



PART II. 



THE DEVELOPEMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL 
LIFE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SOURCE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

All truths will influence the conduct in propor- 
tion as they become domesticated, as it were, in 
the mind. And they will become thus domestica- 
ted in proportion to the frequency with which they 
are called up therein, and to the completeness — the 
extensiveness of compass and of association — in 
which they present themselves. 

To know a subject, therefore, practically, so as 
to be influenced thereby, we must not only turn 
our attention to it repeatedly ; but we must investi- 
gate it thoroughly ; survey it on all sides ; be add- 
ing, on each successive view, some further thoughts 
which go to make up the fulness of the conception, 
or of its associations, in our mind. 



50 THE SOURCE OF 

Having, therefore, enlarged with some diffuse- 
ness on the several particulars which make up the 
scriptural conception of the inward life of Chris- 
tianity, I would now turn the attention of my reader 
to the process by which that life is ordinarily deve- 
loped in the consciousness. 

And here, in the first place, I would show that 
this Inward Life must take its rise in the depths of the 
human spirit. 

For Christianity is a remedy for human guilt and 
corruption, and the Spirit, therefore, which applies 
that remedy to the individual soul, must reach and 
influence the very seat of the disease, if it would 
radically purify the character. Deep as is our 
depravity, so deep must commence our sancti- 
fication. 

Now the source of our habitual thoughts and 
conduct, — of all that properly constitutes the cha- 
racter of a man, — lies in the prevailing tendency 
which has formed itself within him from earliest 
infancy, and which, by virtue of precedence and 
pre-occupation, gives a bias to all successive im- 
pressions and acts. There is a characteristic prin- 
ciple of human nature, which forms, as it were, the 
nucleus of the man, round which all subsequent 
conceptions arrange themselves ; — the nature to 
which they assimilate, the type according to which 
they crystallize. The instincts and appetites of 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 51 

the body form its centre ; the passions of the ani- 
mal Will dispose themselves around it ; and the 
ever-changing objects of the world increase inces- 
santly the evil mass. And according to the influ- 
ence of this, we view the truths presented to us ; — 
they are tinged with the jaundice of our diseased 
nature. According to this, we are determined in 
our judgments, purposes, and actions. And accord- 
ing to this, therefore, the general character is form- 
ed ; a character common in its broader features to 
all men, but modified in its details by the proportion 
of the several appetites, desires, and imaginations 
to each other in different minds. 

This inward source of character and conduct 
is what is called in Scripture, the heart, the spirit, 
the natural man. In this lies the well-spring of hu- 
man action ; and from this flows that silent but 
powerful current which bears us onward, almost 
unconsciously, in a direction far away from God. 
O what a dangerous influence is constantly exert- 
ing itself within us, — the more effectually because 
beneath the light of consciousness ! What a fountain 
of evil is constantly tossing up its bitter waters and 
absorbing into its bosom each purer thought that 
may be thrown into the mind ! How shall we 
counteract its power? how shall we dam up, or 
turn, its ever-swelling current? Is it not clear 
that nothing partial can stem that which is so ex- 



52 THE SOURCE OF 

tensive ; nothing temporary can restrain that which 
is so constant? 

And therefore it is that all the moral influences 
which man himself can bring to bear upon his cha- 
racter are so inadequate. Much is attempted by 
appeals to self-interest, and prudential calculation ; 
much by the sense of shame, and love of reputation ; 
much by the dictates of elevated moral sentiment, 
and refined taste ; much by pleas for conscience, 
that is, for the peace which follows a conformity to 
our convictions. And these all are good and valu- 
able. These all do something. These all are to be 
plied in every way, to stem the torrent of corrup- 
tion. But, I ask observation, and I ask experience, 
— How far do they go ? What is the extent of their 
influence on the inward man ? The one character- 
istic and the one defect of all is, that they are but 
partial in their operation ; they may modify the 
native principle, but they do not change it ; they 
may confine the stream in narrower bounds, or they 
may turn it somewhat from its course, or they may 
produce therein occasional counter currents ; but it 
is the same stream still ; too often flowing but the 
deeper for the narrowing of its banks, too often 
running but the faster in one channel, from the 
partial obstruction that it meets with in another. 
The principle of evil is not materially weakened, 
though the developement of evil is restrained. The 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 53 

arguments of Prudence may successfully oppose the 
sins which manifestly injure us. Regard for repu- 
tation may keep down all that is accounted dis- 
graceful in good society. Good taste may check 
whatever is abhorrent to delicate refinement. The 
desire of inward peace may stimulate us to keep 
our conduct up to the level of our principles. But 
then, with all these various influences brought to 
bear upon the manifestations of corruption, what, 
again I ask, is really done with its hidden source ? 
The remedies are partial, and partial only therefore 
can be the cure. The symptoms are attacked and 
modified : the disease remains. 

And equally ineffectual must be every temporary 
obstruction which human power can apply, how- 
ever extensive it may be for the time it lasts. There 
are, indeed, circumstances, which sometimes rouse 
the whole man into opposition to his evil nature. 
There are moments when all his feelings are en- 
listed on the side of duty ; when every motive to it 
is combined ; when the folly, danger, grossness, mi- 
sery of sin, so flash upon the mind, that we see it 
in its true light, and we hate it and denounce it. 
Providential occurrences will do this. The preach- 
ing of the word of God will do this. Sudden remi- 
niscences will do this. The menaces of danger and 
of death will do this. And for a time the import- 
ant work seems done ; the stream of evil seems 



54 THE SOURCE OF 

dammed up ; the current is thrown back upon iu 
self; the man seems left uninfluenced by it, free to 

turn himself whither he may please : yet, even 

now, the flood is gathering strength, collecting all 
its energy, sapping the temporary barrier, till down 
it pours in all its fury, rushing onward but the 
more impetuously for its momentary repression. O 
the utter insufficiency of merely human motive ! O 
the absolute necessity of something more than this 
in both extent and permanency ; nay, different from, 
and of a higher kind, than any power that earth 
can furnish ! Must not all effectual reformation 
begin within, — in the principle itself; and not merely 
be opposed from without, to its results ? Must not 
the bitter stream itself be cleansed by the casting in 
of a divine remedy ? Must not the very spring-head 
of the evil be made the spring-head of the good ? 

I answer in the words of one who knows full well 
the powers of human reason,* and I say, " The 
spirit of prudential motive, however ennobled by 
the magnitude and awfulness of its objects, and 
though as the termination of a lower it may be the 
commencement, (and not seldom the occasion,) of 
an higher state, is not, even in respect of morality 
itself, that abiding and continuous principle of action 
which is either one with the faith spoken of by St. 
Paul, or its immediate offspring. It cannot be that 
* Coleridge. Second Lay Sermon. 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 55 

spirit of obedience to the commands of Christ, by 
which the soul dwelleth in him and he in it, (1 John 
iii. 4.) and which our Saviour himself announces as 
a being born again. And this indispensable act, or 
influence, or impregnation, of which, as of a divine 
tradition, the eldest philosophy is not silent ; which 
flashed through the darkness of the pagan myste- 
ries ; and which it was therefore a reproach to a 
Master in Israel that he had not already known ; 
(John iii.) — this is elsewhere explained as a seed 
which, though of gradual developement, did yet 
potentially contain the essential form not merely 
of a better, but of an other life ; amidst all the 
frailties and transient eclipses of mortality, making, 
I repeat, the subjects of this regeneration not so 
properly better as other men, whom, therefore, the 
world could not but hate as aliens. Its own native 
growth, however improved by cultivation, (whether 
through the agency of blind sympathies or of an in- 
telligent self-interest, the utmost heights to which 
the worldly life can ascend,) the world has always 
been ready and willing to acknowledge and admire. 
< They are of the world ; therefore speak they out 
of the heart of the world, and the world heareth 
them.' " 

H^nce then, you perceive, it follows in the 
second place, that this Inward Life must spring 
from a Divine source. 



56 THE SOURCE OF 

For, the depths of the human spirit, who can pe- 
netrate, and who can influence, but He who is its 
maker and sustainer? What we ourselves per- 
ceive of our own minds in the moment of self-con- 
sciousness is not one millionth part of that vast 
store of conceptions, and those innumerable trains 
of thought, which, far below the ken of inward con- 
templation, are ever living and effective in the soul; 
seething, as it were, in its unfathomed depths, and 
causing, every instant, changes sudden and exten- 
sive in the surface waves which we behold. And 
the laws of those changes, who can calculate ? 
the causes which are thus in constant operation, 
who can alter ? To work effectually, therefore, upon 
our own spirits by our own unassisted skill and 
force is far beyond the power of man. We may 
catch a glimpse of some of the more general Jaws 
of thought, we may conjecture the existence of 
manifold concurrent causes, we may learn by long 
experience what we must avoid and what pursue 
upon the whole ; — but who can touch the heart ? 
Who can discover the secret spring that sets in 
motion all its complicated and inexplicable work- 
ings ? Who can supply the regulator which con- 
trols and harmonizes them ? Who but God who 
searcheth the heart and trieth the reins, and work- 
eth all in all ? 

Besides, the rise of Piety in the heart takes 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 57 

place, not as a mechanical effect, but as a living 
growth. Even in cases where it seems to dawn 
the most suddenly on the consciousness and on the 
world, it has been a growth. And to this growth, 
not ourselves alone, but all persons and all cir- 
cumstances without intermission have contributed. 
Any one condition of mind at any one moment is 
the product of the circumstances of that moment, 
multiplied into all its preceding conditions. And 
who is the arranger of those circumstances, and 
who forms the ground and life of those conditions, 
but the God in whom we live and move ? The 
blessed principles and feelings of true religion do 
not then first begin to be, when our attention is 
engaged by them ; the moment of their birth into 
the consciousness is not the moment of their gene- 
ration in the soul. The seeds thereof have been 
thrown in from time to time by the ever-working 
providence and grace of God ; they have long 
been buried in the clods of the earthly nature; 
they have been secretly impregnated by the all- 
pervading Spirit of life ; they have expanded silent- 
ly and unsuspected ; they put forth timidly their 
delicate shoots ; often they are met and nipped by 
the chilling blasts of an uncongenial world, and 
they shrink again into themselves ; till some more 
favourable moment is vouchsafed them ; a gentler 
air breathes over them ; they burst through every 



58 



THE SOURCE OF 



remaining obstacle, they press up through all the 
superincumbent weight of earthliness ; — and there 
they are ! discoverable now by the downward glance 
of meditation, perceptible to the mind that ponders 
on itself, and gladdening with their young and ten- 
der verdure the admiring soul. All growth, in mind 
as in nature, must be mysterious, and independent 
of ourselves. We can perceive only that things 
have grown : we have not eyes to trace them in 
their growth. 

" Who ever saw the earliest rose 
First open her sweet breast V* 

And who can chronicle the growth of friend- 
ship, and the buddings of affection? Do we 
not awake to the perception of them as if some 
sudden light had only now revealed to us senti- 
ments which, nevertheless, we, in the very moment 
of their revelation, feel ourselves to be familiar 
With ; and which, therefore, we do not so much 
discover as recognize within us ? 

And just so is it with the dawn of Piety in the 
mind. We feel it to be in us, yet not of us. It 
bears upon itself the stamp of heavenly origin. 
We confess with St. Paul that it " has pleased God 
to reveal his Son in us." We cry, in the words of 
Jesus, " Blessed art thou, my soul, for flesh and 
blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but thy Fa- 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 59 

ther which is in heaven." And we exclaim with the 
Apostle, " the depth of the riches both of the 
wisdom and of the knowledge of God ! For of Him 
and through Him, and to Him, are all things, to 
whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen I" 

This then is the truth which Scripture expresses 
so emphatically when it declares : " The wind blow- 
eth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor 
whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born 
of the Spirit." (John iii. 8.) " Of his own will 
begat he us with the word of truth, that we should 
be a kind of first fruits of his creatures." (James 
i. 18.) "We have received, not the spirit of the 
world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might 
know the things that are freely given to us of 
God." (1 Cor. ii. 12.) "As many as received 
him, to them gave he power to become the Sons of 
God, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will 
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
(John i. 12, 13.) 

And so the Bishops and Fathers of our church. 
" Holy we cannot be," says Bishop Andrews, " by 
any habit, moral or acquisite. There is none such 
in all moral philosophy. As we have our faith by 
illumination, so have we our holiness by inspira- 
tion ; < receive' both from without. To a habit 
the Philosophers came, and so Christians may. 



60 



THE SOURCE OF 



But that will not serve ; they must go further. Our 
habits acquisite will lift us no further than they 
did the heathen men; no further than the place 
where they grow, that is, earth and nature. They 
cannot work beyond their kind, (nothing can,) nor 
rise higher than their spring. It is not, therefore, 
' si habitum acquisistis,' but ' si spiritum recepistis,' 
that we must go by." — " The condition of man after 
the fall of Adam," says our Tenth Article, "is such, 
that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own 
natural strength and good works to faith and call- 
ing upon God : wherefore, we have no power to do 
good works pleasant and acceptable to God, with- 
out the grace of God, by Christ, preventing us, that 
we may have a good will, and working with us 
when we have that good will." " It is the Holy 
Ghost," says our Homily for Whitsunday, " and no 
other thing, that doth quicken the minds of men, 
stirring up good and godly motions in their hearts, 
which are agreeable to the will and commandment 
of God, such as otherwise of their own crooked 
and perverse nature they should never have. That 
which is born of the Spirit is spirit. As who should 
say, Man of his own nature is fleshly and carnal, 
corrupt, and naught, sinful and disobedient to 
God, without any spark of goodness in him, with- 
out any virtuous or godly motion, only given to 
evil thoughts and wicked deeds. As for the works 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 61 

of the Spirit, the fruits of faith, charitable and 
godly motions, if he have any at all in him, they 
proceed only of the Holy Ghost, who is the only 
worker of our sanctification, and maketh us new 
men in Christ Jesus." " O thou Lord of all power 
and might, — who art the author of all godliness — 
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy — 
by whose only inspiration we can think those things 
that be good — from whom all holy desires, all good 
counsels, and all just works do proceed — graft in 
our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true 
religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy 
great mercy keep us in the same, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord ! " 

If then such be the Source of the Spiritual Life, 
we see at once the difficulties which this sub- 
ject must unavoidably present to every superficial 
thinker. To him who is indifferent to his danger 
as a sinner alienated from God, and not awake to 
the absolute necessity of this new life to his salva- 
tion, the mysterious inwardness and divinity of its 
rise in the spirit must ever produce surprise and 
cavil. He knows not himself and the depths of his 
own heart, and the inveteracy of his disease, and 
he cannot therefore understand the nature of the 
remedy that he needs. He thinks and lives in the 
world of sense, and everything pertaining to the 



62 THE SOURCE OF 

world of spirit must be strange to him. The whole 
region is to him an untrodden, nay, an unimagined 
one, and it is but natural, therefore, that he should 
doubt, and perhaps deride, the reports of others as 
he would a traveller's tale of wonder. Piety is a 
spiritual experience ; that is, it lies beyond the 
sphere of sense, and cannot, therefore, be described 
or demonstrated under the forms of sense ; and con- 
sequently he who pleads for it, must be prepared to 
meet objections drawn from such a source with dig- 
nified tranquillity.* He will not think to solve them 
while yet the very ear is wanting by which the solu- 
tion can be heard, and the heart by which it can 

* "That amendment and elevation of heart and character 
should be obtained not by any power dwelling by nature within 
the individual ; that it should be gained, not by the operation of 
the ordinary motives of morality, not by the vaunted power of 
favourable habits ; or, to speak the whole at once, that there 
should be a constant communion between this earthly world and 
a higher, between this earthly and visible creature and that hea- 
venly and invisible Creator who inhabiteth eternity ; that this 
communion should be open to all who desire it and who use the 
means by which it is to be obtained ; and finally, that by this 
communion alone man can attain to that degree of perfection of 
which he is capable ; — these are things, indeed, which a reason- 
able man will not expect to be appiehended by those whose 
views are confined to matter, to the pursuit of the knowledge 
connected with it, and to the desire after the good which it can 
bestow." H.J.Rose. The Commission of the Clergy. 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 63 

be understood ; but will seek rather to address him- 
self to the deeper source of all objections, — the indif- 
ference, and self-ignorance, and false security, from 
which they spring. This was the method Jesus 
took with Nicodemus (John hi. 4 — 8). When the 
latter asked him, " How can a man be born when he 
is old ?" he attempts not to answer this " How," till 
he has pressed upon the conscience of the objector 
the absolute necessity of the experience itself about 
which he objects ; — " Except a man be born of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 
Marvel not that I said unto thee. Ye must be born 
again." All difficulties about the manner of the 
workings of Religion are but the trifling of an un- 
concerned mind; but when the necessity of Reli- 
gion is once felt, when a holy earnestness comes 
over us, and we heartily desire and seek the thing 
itself, then are we prepared either to have our 
real perplexities removed, or to learn with humble 
faith that they are not removable to finite man. 
And, therefore, Jesus having re-asserted to Nico- 
demus the great truth which he began with, and 
shown the absolute necessity of its experience in 
every man, from the simple fact that all are born 
enveloped in an earthly nature, and cannot, there- 
fore, possibly be fit for a heavenly state till out of 



64 THE SOURCE OF 

that earthly nature has been made to spring a 
heavenly one — " he only that is born of the Spirit 
can be spiritual ;'* — having thus solemnly re-assert- 
ed the necessity of the fact, let the manner be in- 
telligible or not ; — then first recurs to the question 
of the Jewish Ruler, How can such a change take 
place, not indeed to answer it, but to indicate its 
unanswerableness ; not to unfold the mysteries of 
the human spirit and of its transition from death 
to life, but to declare that they are far too deep for 
our perception ; for while results of thought present 
themselves in the consciousness and issue out in 
the conduct, the causes of thought, and their occa- 
sions, and their complex associations, and their 
manifold workings, are hidden from the human 
eye. It is with the spirit that breathes within us 
even as with the wind that breathes around us, — 
sensible in its effects, but hidden in its source. 
" The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 

whence it cometh nor whither it goeth ; so," 

similar in what is perceptible and what is imper- 
ceptible ; similar in the certainty of the facts, and 

in the uncertainty of the cause and manner, 

" so is every one that is born of the Spirit." The 
Spiritual Life may be experienced in the con- 
sciousness and will display itself in the conduct ; 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 65 

but how it came into the heart, and whence it 
came, — these are matters not of observation, but 
of faith. 

But what encouragement does this truth of the 
Divine origin of Piety afford, to every one who de- 
sires the experience of it in himself! If you com- 
prehend enough of the awful purity of God, and of 
the corruption of your own heart, to feel the abso- 
lute necessity of a change in you, the sinner, in or- 
der to your dwelling with Him, the Holy One ; of a 
participation of the divine nature now, in order to 
your entering into the divine glory hereafter ; then, 
I ask you, where will you go for such a transforma- 
tion ? Whence will you derive it ? How will you 
effect it ? Can flesh develope itself into spirit ? Can 
it give birth spontaneously and by its natural vir- 
tue to anything above its own kind ? Can under- 
standing expand beyond the confines of the sphere 
for which it has been formed, and in which it dwells 
and acts ? Can the heavenly and divine spring out 
from the earthly and the human ? Can the Ethio- 
pian change his skin, and the leopard his spots ; or 
he who has been accustomed to do evil, of himself 
do good ? And what hope, then, can you have of 
being renewed in the spirit of your mind, if that 
renewal does not come from God? But if it does, 
—then is there hope for you, for every man who 

F 



6Q THE SOURCE OF 

turns to seek the blessing from its proper source ; 
for, you and every man are within the compass 
of the all-embracing love of God. He is your 
Father, and he has a Father's ear for every sigh 
of supplication that is breathed towards him, and a 
Father's bountifulness to bestow the blessings that 
you ask for. Were, indeed, the source of good to 
be sought within yourself, what could we say to 
cheer you, for you yourself are empty of all good ; 
but if it be in God, (and in God it is abundantly,) 
then may we address you with the mingled ex- 
hortation, and reproof, and promises of holy writ, — 
" Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in 
the streets, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will 
ye love simplicity, and the scorners delight in 
their scorning ? Turn you at my reproof ; behold, 
I will pour out my Spirit upon you, I will make 
known my ivords unto you /" Do you hesitate be- 
cause you feel yourself unworthy ? Do you keep 
away from God because you have not the Spirit of 
God? — Remember that you cannot find this Spirit 
till you come to him to receive it from Him as his 
gift ; that on this very account your Saviour has 
prepared a way for your approach to God, has 
thrown wide open the doors of His presence-cham- 
ber, that you may have access to his grace, and 
gain from him the Spirit of adoption whereby you 
may cry Abba Father ! 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 67 

And do you ask what are the means by which 
this gift must be sought, the channels through 
which it descends into the soul ? The very nature 
of the Gift sufficiently points out the nature of 
those Means. For God must influence the spirit 
of man in a spiritual manner, — that is, by intro- 
ducing and awakening thoughts and feelings which 
may work within the mind according to the laws 
of mind, and thus bring home the remedy to the 
very seat, and in accordance with the very form 
and character, of the disease. The Spirit of God is 
Mind, and therefore works by Mind, and is to be 
found in Mind, and communicates himself through 
Mind. By intercourse with our own soul ; by in- 
tercourse with the souls of other Christian men; 
by intercourse with God, who is the soul of our soul 
and of theirs; shall we obtain that living Spirit 
which we need. 

Let us cultivate, then, Intercourse with ourselves; 
acquaintance with our own mind, and heart, and 
character ; — reflection, meditation, self-inspection, 
self-knowledge. " The true knowledge of our- 
selves," says our Second Homily, " is necessary, to 
come to the right knowledge of God :" " He who 
knows himself," says an ancient Heathen writer, 
" will know God ; and he who knows God will be- 
come like God ; and he who becomes like God will 
walk worthy of God, thinking, speaking, and acting 



68 THE SOURCE OF 

even as God would think, and speak, and act." All 
depends on pausing to consider our own ways ; find- 
ing out the man within ourselves and becoming 
intimate and at home in our own bosom. Not that 
we need laborious thought ; difficult abstraction ; 
mystic musings ; morbid brooding over frames and 
feelings ; anything that cannot be pursued by the 
most occupied or the least intellectual : — but simply 
that observing of ourselves, as we observe other men, 
— that questioning of ourselves, keeping account of 
ourselves, talking with ourselves, which exalts the 
thinking man above the heedless child, and makes 
him live for something higher than to be the slave 
and sport of each successive outward object that 
may present itself to his bodily eyes or ears. The 
considering who we are ; what we are ; whence we 
are ; why we are ; whither we are going : — the pon- 
dering on our relation to God who is our Father ; to 
the world which is our school of discipline ; to men 
who are our brethren ; and to Eternity which is our 
home. So shall we understand our actual state of 
mind ; our spiritual wants ; the suitableness of the 
Gospel truths and promises to their supply ; the 
course we are to run, the steps that we must take ; 
beginning with ourselves to end with God. 

And let us add to this, Intercourse with our Fel- 
low Christians, For all the experiences of Religion 
depend upon the influences of the Spirit of God ; and 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 69 

the Spirit of God resides in the church of Christ, 
and diffuses itself by means of the members of 
Christ. It is a Family Spirit, to be caught by in- 
tercourse with that Family. And, therefore, the 
grand means appointed by Christ himself for its 
communication has ever been the social inter- 
course of Christian men. This he promised his 
Apostles when he said, " I will pray the Father, 
and he shall give you another Comforter which 
shall abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of 
truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it 
seeth him not, neither knoweth him ; but ye know 
him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you ;" 
speaking here not to any individual separately, (the 
pronouns are plural,) but to the whole collectively 
as a united body. Wherefore it was that he after- 
wards commanded them not to break up their com- 
munity and separate themselves to different parts, 
saying that " they should not depart from Jerusalem, 
but wait for the promise of the Father which they 
had heard of him ;" and then, " when they were 
all with one accord in one place," that promise 
was fulfilled, and they were filled with the Holy 
Ghost. For this, moreover, he has given " Apos- 
tles, and Prophets, and Evangelists, and Pastors, 
and Teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for 
the work of ministering to their spiritual wants, for 
the edifying of the body of Christ, from whom the 



70 THE SOURCE OF 

whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by 
tliat which every joint supplieth, maketh increase of 
the body unto the edifying of itself in love." For 
this, he has commanded us by his Apostle " not to 
forsake the assembling of ourselves together," be- 
cause " where two or three are gathered together 
in his name, there is he in the midst of them." For 
this, he gives the manifestation of the Spirit to 
every Christian man that he may profit his bre- 
thren therewith. And, therefore, to participate in 
this, we must be regular and frequent in public 
worship, in family and social prayer, in friendly 
Christian intercourse, thereby to imbibe and to 
sustain the Spiritual Life. We must place our- 
selves in the atmosphere of the Spirit if we would 
inhale the Spirit. The principle of Social interest, 
which leads us to join ourselves to other men; the 
principle of Imitation, which bends the mind un- 
consciously in the direction of those to whom we 
join ourselves ; the principle of Sympathy, which 
makes the slightest thought and feeling of our own 
mind to be increased to a fourfold intensity, by our 
consciousness of its participation by those around 
us ; — of their being sensible themselves of this par- 
ticipation ; — of their emotions being heightened by 
their sympathy with ours ; — of their thus respond- 
ing not to us alone, but to all the rest in mutual 
communion with us ; — these several mighty means 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 71 

of influence on the human heart, by which the 
Spirit of God communicates, as through the links 
of an electric chain, the principle of spiritual life, 
must all be grasped by us if we would thrill with 
fire from heaven. 

But then, with both these means, we must unite 
Intercourse with God by secret Prayer. For Prayer 
re-acts upon all other influences, and collects them 
into the unity of our own spirit, and diffuses them 
through every power of the man. And Prayer brings 
down into the midst of every thought, and train of 
thought, the idea of God; reminds us that ourselves 
are in the presence and under the control of God ; 
our circumstances have been all arranged by God ; 
our opportunities of grace have been ordained by 
God ; our teachers have been commissioned by God ; 
our Christian friends are actuated and blessed by 
God ; — and thus infuses into the most ordinary ob- 
jects, persons, and occurrences, the character and 
power of a divine communication to the soul. 
" Now, therefore," said Cornelius to St. Peter, 
" we are all here present before God, to hear all 
things that are commanded thee of God." And 
what was the result of this devout infusion of the 
thought of God into all the words that Peter then 
addressed to them ? — " While Peter yet spake 
these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which 
heard the word." 



72 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PROCESS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

The Spiritual Life must, we have seen, from 
the very nature of our being, take its rise in the 
inscrutable depths of the human soul, and have its 
source in the secret inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
But the developement of this life must not the less, 
from this same nature of our being, become mani- 
fest to the consciousness of the Individual ; and the 
Process of that Developement will, moreover, from 
the general similarity of man to man, be, for the 
most part, similar in all religious minds. These 
are the two points which will occupy the present 
chapter. 

And first, — The Developement of Spiritual Life 
must become manifest to the consciousness of the 
individual in whom it is awakened. For deep and 
hidden as are the mass of our conceptions in the 
recesses of the spirit, their workings and results 
become both seen and felt by that peculiar power 
of self-consciousness, — of introspection and inward 



PROCESS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 73 

sense, — with which we are endowed. The essence 
of Mind we cannot discover, any more than we can 
the essences of the external world ; but the pheno- 
mena of Mind are presented to the inward intui- 
tion just as the phenomena of matter are to the 
outward observation. We cannot possess vigor- 
ous thoughts, affections, and purposes, on any sub- 
ject and of any kind, without becoming more or 
less conscious of their existence ; that is, without a 
feeling and experience of the goings on within our 
mind. And as generally, on any subject that in- 
terests us, so particularly must there be such feel- 
ing and experience on the subject of Religion; 
if, indeed, this last have seized on our attention, 
and become alive in our heart. " Religious Ex- 
perience" is, indeed, a phrase often mistaken and 
sometimes misused; but it expresses a fact, or 
series of facts, in the consciousness, without which 
no man can be saved. It denotes all those exer- 
cises of the mind and heart which indicate that 
Religion is not merely a profession and a creed, 
but an influence and a life. It expresses the find- 
ing in ourselves the realities, the things signified, of 
which words are but the shadows and the signs. 
And only, therefore, as we do find in ourselves (that 
is, experience^ these realities, can we truly under- 
stand the words — that is, place under them a solid 
and substantial meaning — whatever knowledge we 



74 



THE PROCESS OF 



may have attained of their grammatical use and 
force. By experience only, either that of external 
sensation, or of internal consciousness, can we un- 
derstand words, — which are the signs of facts oc- 
curring in that sensation or that consciousness. If 
a man tells me of a bodily sensation — a head-ache, 
for example — I understand him only so far as that 
sensation has been present to myself; and I reply 
either " I cannot enter into your feelings, for I 
never experienced what a head- ache is," — or "I 
understand you, for I have experienced the same." 
If he speaks to me of esteem, gratitude, affection, — 
which are mental sensations, sentiments, or feel- 
ings, — I can answer, " Yes, I know well what you 
mean, for I have experienced such sentiments my- 
self." If he tells me of the glow of admiration 
which came over him at the contemplation of such 
or such a lovely scene ; or of the thrill of pleasure 
which was awakened in him by such or such 
melodious sounds ; here again I can believe he is 
not uttering rapturous nonsense ; because I have 
myself experienced the same emotions. A\\<i just 
similarly in Religion : there are experiences of the 
conscience and the heart, by rinding which within 
ourselves we can alone supply a meaning to the 
glowing words and images of Scripture, or can re- 
gard the men themselves who use those words as 
other than enthusiasts, of Oriental warmth of tem- 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 75 

perament, and exaggeration of language. Either 
they mean something weighty, and essential to Re- 
ligion, or they do not. And if they do mean some- 
thing weighty, and essential to Religion, (which 
every one who reverences the Bible or its Authors 
will at once concede,) then, from the nature of the 
case, that meaning cannot be collected merely by 
critical interpretation, and conveyed by verbal defi- 
nition, but must be supplied and substantiated by 
personal experience. Notions may be conveyed 
from mind to mind by logical definitions, but feel- 
ings can be only indicated by analogies, the sense 
of which must be found by the hearer for himself 
and in his own bosom. The one is as the imprint- 
ing of a stamp upon the understanding : the other is 
the touching of a string whose vibrations may awake 
a corresponding chord in the heart. Therefore, 
without the finding in ourselves those states of con- 
sciousness which the Scripture writers found with- 
in themselves, and of which their words and images 
are short-hand signs, there can be no possession of 
the mind of the pious men of God, and therefore no 
real piety. In this, as in all practical truth, the 
axiom holds good " quantum sumus, scimus" — only 
what we actually are, do we really know. 

To answer — as, alas ! it has been answered — that 
the words of Scripture which indicate such experi- 
ences " mean nothing to us ; nothing, (that is) to 



76 THE PROCESS OF 

be found or sought for in the present circumstances 
of Christianity," — is to confound the temporary with 
the permanent, the ever varying circumstances of 
man, with the ever similar nature of man. It is to 
forget the general principle which Scripture itself 
lays down — " as in water, face answereth to face, 
so the heart of man to man." Man, in the essen- 
tials of his nature, is in all ages, countries, and cir- 
cumstances, the same ; " with the same organs, di- 
mensions, senses, affections, passions ; fed by the 
same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to 
the same diseases, healed by the same means, 
warmed and cooled by the same winter and sum- 
mer." And, therefore, similarly, a religious man, 
in the essentials of his character, must be in all 
ages, countries, and circumstances the same ; and, 
notwithstanding all the accidental differences of 
form, and of degree, which may result from differ- 
ence of knowledge, temperament, and situation, 
still, whatever was essential to render a Jew pious, 
or a Roman pious, or an Ephesian or Colossian 
pious, must be equally essential to render an 
Englishman pious ; nay, whatever workings of such 
piety were experienced in the vast translation from 
Heathenism to Christianity, such workings in sub- 
stance, must be similarly experienced, in the not 
less real and necessary translation from a nominal 
Christianity to a personal one ; from a participation 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 77 

of the outward instructions, privileges, and ordi- 
nances, of a true church, to the participation of that 
inward life of faith, and love, and hope, to be the 
occasion of which, those instructions, privileges, 
and ordinances, are vouchsafed. Separate the ac- 
cidental marks of their experiences, as Jews or Hea- 
thens, from their essential ones, as corrupt and guilty 
men, and these latter must apply to us and be 
necessary to us. It was to Israelites, remember, — 
that is, to the chosen people of the true God ; to 
men educated in the law of God, and partakers 
of the ordinances of God, — to whom the Prophets 
Jeremiah and Ezekiel cried, "Make you a new heart 
and a new spirit, lest ye die ;" and concerning whom 
they promised from the Lord, " I will take away 
from them the heart of stone, and give to them a 
heart of flesh :" and shall then any Ecclesiastical 
privileges make such exhortations and such pro- 
mises less needful to us ? It was to a Jew, — a 
ruler of the Jews, " a most respectable man," — that 
Jesus said, " Ye must be born again." Nay, it was 
to Christianized Ephesians, baptized Ephesians, 
members of the body of Christ, that St. Paul de- 
clares — " Put off the old man which is corrupt, and 
be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the 
new man, which after God is created in righteous- 
ness and true holiness." 

Never, then, let this necessity of personal expe- 



78 THE PROCESS OF 

rience of the inward life be overlooked, lest we de- 
ceive ourselves with unwarrantable hopes of a sal- 
vation, the very seeds of which have never yet been 
manifested in our heart or conduct. Much is said, 
I know, about a modest and a secret Piety, — about 
avoiding ostentation and hypocrisy, and keeping the 
awful subject of Religion between our conscience 
and our God, and disclaiming pretensions to enthu- 
siastic movements of the mind. But as much must 
be said, upon the other hand, about life being know- 
able only by its actings, and principles and feelings 
only by their manifestations. However secret the 
causes, yet, surely the effects, to be actual, — that is, 
to be effects at all,-— must come out into the consci- 
ousness and conduct. We should give little credit 
to that asserted patience which produced no actual 
calm of mind ; or to that professed affection which 
left the heart unmoved by any ripple of emotion ; or 
to that declared devotion to our interests, of which 
no trace betrayed itself by acts of zeal and service. 
We do not, indeed, wish a friend to boast inces- 
santly of the attachment that he feels for us ; but 
still we should not quite expect the secret of it to 
be so marvellously well preserved, that neither to 
ourselves, nor any one besides, should any glimmer 
of it struggle into view. Nor does the man of taste, 
perhaps, attempt to analyze his feelings very meta- 
physically, or pore over them with morbid sensibi- 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 79 

lity ; yet, most certainly a man of taste he could 
not be if he had not those feelings, — if all objects 
and all subjects were to him alike indifferent — if his 
eye never glistened at some splendid scene of nature, 
and his heart never leaped up within him at some 
noble act of heroism, and his spirit never quivered 
like a well-strung instrument when the breath of 
eloquence swept over it, or the strains of music 
lingered on its chords. O why will men think of 
banishing emotion from Religion when they feel that 
on every other subject of interest and of grandeur 
and of beauty, to be without emotion is to be with- 
out the characteristic of humanity ! Why will they 
give to the flesh and to the world their very soul, 
and reserve for Him who made that soul the dregs 
alone, the flat residuum which may be left when 
all its life has been drawn off and all its nobler 
workings have subsided ! Let no man fancy that 
he loves God, if he be not conscious that he loves 
God. Let no man flatter himself that he is serv- 
ing God, if the seeming good that he can point to 
in his conduct has not sprung from pious motive, 
intelligent self-dedication, affectionate communion 
with his heavenly Father. He who is " a godly per- 
son," according to our Seventeenth Article, " must 
feel in himself the workings of the Spirit of Christ, 
mortifying the works of the flesh and his earthly 
members, and drawing up his mind to high and 



80 THE PROCESS OF 

heavenly things." And he who has " the very 
sure and lively Christian faith," according to our 
Fourth Homily, " this Faith doth not lie dead in 
the heart, but is lively and fruitful in bringing forth 
good works." For, " as the light cannot be hid, but 
will show forth itself at one place or another ; so a 
true faith cannot be secret^ but when occasion is of- 
fered it will break out and show itself by good 
works. And as the living body of a man ever exer- 
ciseth such things as belong to a natural and living 
body for nourishment and preservation of the same 
as it hath need, opportunity, and occasion ; even so 
the soul that hath a lively faith in it will be doing 
always some good work which shall declare that it 
is living, and will not be unoccupied." — " This is 
the true, lively, and unfeigned Christian faith, and 
is not in the mouth and outward profession only, but 
it liveth and stirreth inwardly in the heart." " The 
wind," says our blessed Lord, " bloweth where it 
listeth, and no man knoweth whence it cometh and 
whither it goeth, but thou hearest the sound there* 
of" — the source of personal Religion may be in- 
scrutable, — but the fact itself, the thing — the actual 
elevation of the mind and spiritualizing of the affec- 
tions, and renewing of the purposes, and sanctify- 
ing of the tastes, and habits, and pursuits, — this 
will be as plain and palpable in him who is truly 
new-born, as the contrary condition of impeni- 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 81 

tence and fleshliness is plain and palpable. By 
their fruits, the two distinctive principles — the old 
man and the new man — must be known. " A good 
tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit, neither can a 
corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. A good man 
out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth 
good things, even as an evil man out of the evil 
treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things ; for 
out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." 
Reader, where are your evidences of personal piety? 
Where are your fruits, — of inward love and outward 
holiness ? We cannot do without these. We must 
not, indeed, search for them in unessential or decep- 
tive marks. But we must search for them. We 
must not derive them from merely temporary 
frames and feelings, or supposed illapses of the 
Spirit. We must not delude ourselves upon the 
one hand, or torment ourselves upon the other, by 
placing dependance on casual experiences which 
may, after all, (both the good and the evil,) be only 
bodily sensations, or, at most, excited states of 
mind ; — but at the same time, evidences we must 
have. And those evidences we must seek and find 
in the general pulse of the soul — not in its variations, 
which may often unnecessarily raise or depress us, 
but in its existence ; — not in the degrees of love to 
God, and prayerful ness, and energy, and zeal, but 
in the fact that we have such love, and prayerful- 



82 THE PROCESS OF 

ness, and energy, and zeal, at all. Surely a man 
may know whether he have love for his father or his 
mother — his wife or children — his brother or his 
friend ! And just by the same general evidence of 
permanent consciousness may he know whether he 
have love to God, and be his child in spirit and in 
truth ; in a word, whether he possess the Inward 
life of Christianity, " Hereby we know that God 
abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given 
us." (1 John iii. 24.) 

It remains now to consider, in the Second Place, 
that as the Developement of the Spiritual Life 
must be more or less manifest to the consciousness 
of the Individual, so the Process of this Manifesta- 
tion will be, for the most part, similar in all religious 
minds. 

For, the natural condition of all men is the same, 
whatever the varieties of form in which it may be 
manifested. The corruption of man's heart is as 
general a fact as the existence of man's nature. In 
" every man, naturally engendered of the offspring 
of Adam," sinfulness is now a characteristic of hu- 
manity. It is as true now as it was in the days of 
Noah that " the imagination of man's heart is evil 
from his youth." It is as undeniable now as it was 
in the days of Jeremiah, that the heart of man is 
"deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 83 

It is as certain now as it was in the days of Jesus 
that "out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, 
murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false wit- 
ness, blasphemies." And, therefore, the assertions 
of Scripture touching our depravity are made ge- 
nerally of man as man, and expressed in a universal 
form. " That which is born of the flesh, is flesh." 
(John iii. 6.) " All have sinned and come short of 
the glory of God." (Romans iii. 23.) " There is 
not a just man upon earth that doeth good and 
sinneth not." (Eccl. vii. 20.) " What is man, 
that he should be clean, and he that is born of a 
woman, that he should be righteous ?" (Job xv. 
14.) " Who can say, I have made my heart clean, 
I am pure from my sin ?" (Prov. xx. 9.) 

And as the natural condition is thus similar in 
all men, so equally must be the necessities which 
result from such a condition ; the sum of which ne- 
cessities is, Deliverance from a state of sinfulness, 
with all its workings and concomitants, into a state 
of Holiness ; which Deliverance, therefore, is the 
grand benefit announced by Revelation, provided 
for in Christ, and placed within the reach of all to 
whom the glad tidings of Christianity are pro- 
claimed. The Remedy is commensurate with the 
disease. 

But if the Disease be universal, and equally so 
the Remedy, then certainly the mode of operation 



84 THE PROCESS OF 

of that Remedy must, in all essential points, be 
similar ; the method (or path of transit) of the 
Deliverance from a state of sinfulness into a state 
of Holiness, must be but one and the same for 
all. The course of Christian experience, — how- 
ever marked by different accidental circumstances 
in different individuals, and however varying in 
intensity or in rapidity, according to their tem- 
perament, or opportunities — must exhibit certain 
general features common to each particular case. 
And hence it is that St. Paul lays down the princi- 
pal steps of this transition in consecutive order, 
when he tells the Romans, " Whom God did pre- 
destinate them he also called, and whom he called 
them he also justified, and whom he justified them 
he also glorified ;" and that Christian churches and 
divines have always noted them with more or less 
distinctness in their Confessions, and their Theo- 
logical Systems ; the fullest as well as the most ex- 
quisite example of which is afforded us incidentally 
in the Seventeenth Article of the Church of England, 
where she declares that they who be endued with the 
benefit of God's predestination, " be called accord- 
ing to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due 
season : they through Grace obey the calling : they 
be justified freely : they be made Sons of God by 
adoption : they be made like the image of his only- 
begotten Son Jesus Christ ; they walk religiously 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 85 

in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they 
attain to everlasting felicity." 

If, then, we simply cast our eyes on some of the 
broader facts of the unrenewed soul, and consider 
what is the transformation which the mere exist- 
ence of those facts supposes necessary in order to 
the realizing of that sense of God as our Father 
which constitutes, as we have before seen, the Es- 
sence of Christian Piety, we shall perceive, I think, 
that the developement of the Spiritual Life, wher- 
ever it has been awakened, must manifest itself in 
something like the following progression of Ex- 
perience. 

First. — All men are by nature indifferent to God. 
They do not willingly think of Him, do not desire the 
knowledge of his ways, are fully occupied with the 
cares, the business, and the pleasures of their earth- 
ly nature ; and thus live practically " without God 
in the world." The first step, therefore, which they 
need towards Piety is to have their attention awaken- 
ed to the cares, the business, and the pleasures of 
their spiritual nature ; to have their minds roused 
from the torpor of indifference to divine things ; 
and the thought of God, and of their relation to 
Him, and of all the solemn consequences of that 
relation, made alive within them. And this the 
Scriptures denominate their Calling, — their waking 
out of sleep — their rising from the dead. 



86 THE PROCESS OF 

Secondly. — Men are ignorant of God. They know 
Him not ; they understand him not ; and even when 
an interest in the thought of Him has been awaken- 
ed, that thought is vague, imperfect, feeble. It is 
for the most part an " unknown God," whom they 
are " feeling after if haply they may find him, 
though he is not far from every one of them." Here, 
then, they need farther to have their understand- 
ing opened to his character, his will, his demands 
upon their conscience, his doings in their behalf, 
his invitations and directions to them. And this is 
called in Scripture their Illumination — Christ giv- 
ing to them light — their being taught of God in the 
Gospel of his Son. 

Thirdly. — The hearts of men are averse to God. 
The thought of Him is not welcome — it is irksome 
— they would rather be without it. And this not 
only on account of its strangeness as contrasted with 
the nature of their earthly imaginations and pur- 
suits — the Spiritual not sorting well with the 
Sensual : and not only on account of its dimness, its 
being so unfamiliar and perplexing, — as no man 
likes the contemplation of Ideas whose obscurity 
upbraids his ignorance ; but, still more, because of 
its contrariety ; because of the natural opposition 
that exists between Sinfulness and Holiness, the 
resistance of the evil nature to the demands of 
goodness, and the consequent dislike which rises 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 87 

against Him who is the Ideal of that Holiness and 
the Author and Enforcer of those demands ; and 
whose very purity, the more it is perceived and 
understood, becomes the more reproachful to us, 
— our image darkening by the contrast, as the 
image of the Holy One emerges into greater bright- 
ness. We need, therefore, the removal, or at 
least, the repression, of this sense of contrariety : 
we need the softening of this opposing will; the 
winning over of this Cain-like sullenness ; the cast- 
ing down imaginations and every high thing that 
exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and 
the bringing every thought into subjection to the 
obedience of Christ ; so that the alien may be na- 
turalized, the rebel be transformed into a loyal sub- 
ject, the heart made friends with God, and ready 
to obey his will. And this the Scriptures call Re- 
pentance, or a change of mind towards God ; Con- 
version, or the turning back to God ; Regeneration, 
or the awakening of a will in harmony with God's 
will ; — a new creation ; — the renewing of the Spirit 
of the mind. 

Fourthly. — Where there is indifference, and igno- 
rance, and aversion, there also is Dread of God. A 
sense of contrariety brings with it a sense of guilt. 
For there is something in our nature which tells us 
unequivocally, (speculate as we may,) that we are 
responsible for our neglect, and deserve punish- 



88 THE PROCESS OF 

merit for our dislike, of God. We feel that we 
owe to him a very different return for all his good- 
ness to us, and that the debt must be reckoned 
to our account. And this dread of God is not re- 
moved even by the submission of our heart to him. 
Nay, it is deepened, in proportion to that growing 
consciousness of sin and guilt which accompanies 
the workings of a true Repentance. For no sorrow 
for our breach of God's Law can do away the claims 
of that Law ; no resolutions for the future can ob- 
literate the past. And the more, therefore, the 
heart is softened, the greater becomes its despond- 
ency. The stronger its desire to turn to God, the 
more it needs to be assured that it may turn to 
Him as to a Friend — a pacified, forgiving, satisfied 
Friend. A sense of personal acceptance, a trust 
in God as entering into a new relation with us, an 
animating consciousness of our heavenly Father's 
presence, care, and approbation — this is essential 
to our running the new race of holiness to which 
repentance pledges us, with that quiet vigour 
which alone ensures success. And this state of 
mind is called in Scripture the state of Justifica- 
tion — the being " justified by Faith, and having 
Peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord," — 
the having " the Spirit of Adoption whereby we 
cry, Abba, Father," — the enjoying " fellowship with 
the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ," — the 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 89 

"joying in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by 
whom we have received the Atonement." 

Once more. — The unconverted man has no defi- 
nite and lively Hope in God. The future is to him 
a blank, or at best the sphere of mere conjecture 
and assumption. Each imagined contingency of 
the present life excites, according to his tempera- 
ment and circumstances, unfounded expectation or 
anxious fear. He has no one on whom to cast the 
burden of the coming day. And with respect to 
the life to come, even if he escapes the forebodings 
of an uneasy though slumbering conscience, he at- 
tains but to the vapid self-security of one who, hav- 
ing gained the necessary passports to a foreign 
land, thinks no more of his departure till the time 
of separation from his friends can be no longer 
delayed. His best anticipations are unthinking 
confidence. His worst are blank despair. Nor is 
the Christian convert without his perplexities and 
apprehensions. He feels almost alone in a world 
of trial and temptation. He cannot depend upon 
himself. He knows that few will understand him, 
sympathize with him, assist him, in the race that 
he is running. He needs, therefore, a child-like 
confidence in God as his unfailing Counsellor and 
Preserver, — dependance on his guidance and sup- 
port through each successive difficulty of this 
world — and that " blessed Hope of everlasting 



90 THE PROCESS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

life," which looks forward to the world to come as 
to our dwelling-place and home. And this the 
Scriptures call the spirit of Assurance — the " walk- 
ing by Faith and not by sight," — the " holding fast 
the confidence and the rejoicing of our Hope firm 
unto the end " — the " rejoicing in Hope of the 
glory of God." 

Such then are some of the principal manifesta- 
tions of that Spiritual Life which, welling out from 
the secret fountains of the soul, purines and quickens 
all the better feelings of our nature, and rises into 
that commingled Love, and Joy, and Hope, the ex- 
ercise of which toward God forms the essential 
spirit of Christian Piety here, and is the foretaste 
of eternal blessedness hereafter. O may God pour 
such a stream of Godliness and Gladness into our 
hearts ! 



91 



CHAPTER III. 



SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 



As we cannot appreciate the worth of Christi- 
anity in general unless we consider the actual 
condition and necessities of human nature, to meet 
which Christianity was vouchsafed; so neither shall 
we be prepared to acquiesce in the Scripture state- 
ments concerning the process by which the life of 
Christianity usually manifests itself in the indivi- 
dual soul, unless we have fixed our attention on 
some of the broader features of our natural state 
of mind, and have thus convinced ourselves of the 
extent of the transformation that we need, in order 
to become new creatures in Christ Jesus. We 
must duly estimate the natural Indifference, Igno- 
rance, Alienation, Dread, and Despondency of the 
human mind towards God, before we can duly esti- 
mate either the necessity or the worth of that Spiri- 
tual Awakening, Illumination, Conversion, Peace, 
and Hope, which the influences of the Holy Ghost 
produce. 

Let us, therefore, now devote ourselves to the 



92 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 

consideration of these particulars in detail. And, 
First, let us bring before our minds the Fact of 
man's Indifference to God. 

Men are naturally indifferent to God; — this is 
the first broad fact of our fallen condition, which 
the slightest observation may convince us of. They 
need, therefore, as the first step to Salvation, to 
have their Attention awakened to Him : — this is the 
conclusion of Reason from the observation of that 
obvious fact. And the Excitement of this Attention 
is the work of God: — this is the Assertion of Scrip- 
ture in answer to the demands of that need. 

All our observation and experience testify to us 
the first broad Fact of our condition, that man is 
naturally indifferent to God. It is only by de- 
grees that we gain any conception of God and of 
his relation to us, and of the infinite importance of 
that relation to our welfare; and without some 
knowledge of these truths, there can of course be 
no interest in them. We are to God — all of us in 
childhood, many of us through youth and manhood, 
and many, alas ! yet longer still, yea, even through- 
out their lives — we are to God, as the infant to its 
parent ; deriving from Him our being ; fed and 
warmed, and nourished by His care ; watched over 
by His never-sleeping eye ; and guarded and sus- 
tained by his ever-extended arm ; — but yet uncon- 
scious of Him ; occupied only with the gifts, un- 



SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 93 

knowing, or heedless of the Giver ; and even when 
we do awake to the fact of His Existence, yet still 
possessing no distinct impression of our dependance 
on Him — still less of our responsibility to Him — still 
less of the awful certainty that all our happiness, of 
body and of soul, for time and for eternity, hangs 
only on His favour. 

And who knows not how continually this early 
indifference, arising from our natural unaequaint- 
ance with God, is strengthened and becomes habi- 
tual, by our subsequent indocility and dulness with 
respect to spiritual things ! The term " God" may, 
indeed, soon become familiar to us ; (often too fa- 
miliar !) his attributes and character we may, per- 
haps, be able to state out in words : — but the Idea, 
— the reality — where is it felt ? What are its in- 
fluences ? How far does it live within us ? The 
world and the things of the world first lay hold 
of the attention, and preoccupy the heart; and 
we know from Scripture testimony, (we know r 
it equally from experience and fact,) that where 
the love of the world is, there is not the love of 
God ; "for all that is in the world, the lust of the 
flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, 
is not of the Father, but is of the world." The very 
objects, circumstances, and occupations, which, as 
means and steps of consideration, are capable of 
leading up the thoughts to God, and bringing Him 



94 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 

continually before the mind, come crowding in so 
thickly and incessantly upon us, that they exhaust 
our attention on themselves as ends, and become to 
us a veil which hides God from our sight, rather 
than the transparent medium through which we 
might behold him. We are immersed in so thick an 
atmosphere steaming up from earth, that we can- 
not see the very sun from which that earth derives 
its life and light, and round which it revolves. 

Nay, even suppose that some rays of light gleam 
in upon us, and excite some momentary warmth, and 
that when we think of God we feel some interest 
in Him, still I must ask, how much, how often, how 
deeply, do men really think of God and feel this 
interest in Him ? Do they not " hear and talk of 
Religion," to use the words of Jeremy Taylor, " but 
as of a dream, and does not Religion make such 
impression as is the conversation of a Dreamer, 
whence they awake to the business of the world ?" 
Have our religious thoughts the life, the force, the 
interest, which is acquired by the slightest circum- 
stances that affect our personal, our social, our po- 
litical, well-being ? What, — I would ask of many 
of my readers — has been the amount of Influence 
upon you exercised by the Idea of God in any given 
day or week — through all the hours and minutes 
of which you have been held in life by God, fed by 
God, blessed by God, have lived, and moved, and 



SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 95 

had your being in God ? How much have you cared 
about his approbation ? How much have you im- 
plored his mercy, intreated his help, laboured in his 
service, and been zealous for his honour ? What, in 
short, has been your interest for God, as compared 
with that which you have experienced for the com- 
munity of which you are a member, for the friends 
whom you esteem, for the wife and children whom 
you love, or for yourself, which is yet dearer to you 
than them all ? I address the general class of de- 
cent, reputable, well-disposed, professedly Christian 
men, and I pray them to examine — as before the 
heart-searching God who knoweth all things — whe- 
ther they are not habitually, whatever be their oc- 
casional or periodical thoughts and feelings of Reli- 
gion, indifferent to God ? — whether, therefore, they 
do not need a new impulse in their heart, a new life 
in their soul, an awaking as from sleep, a resurrection 
as from the dead, a new birth into a new world, with 
new perceptions, anxieties, desires, efforts, and pur- 
suits? O the awful danger of dreaming listlessly 
through life without religion — or about religion! 
Only start into the consciousness that you are in- 
deed dreaming — (he is very near to waking who is 
conscious that he dreams,) — only turn not drowsily 
away from the friendly call of God, and you shall 
" awake and arise from the dead, and Christ shall 
give you light." 



96 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 

This is the point to which all men must be brought 
if they would be saved : — they must have their atten- 
tion awakened to God; they must have their eyes un- 
closed to look upon Him, their ears unstopped to 
listen to Him, their heart opened to attend to the 
things that are spoken of Him. This is the first step 
towards Piety. Till God has gained our attention 
He has gained nothing, — nor have we gained any- 
thing. Without this opening of the heart it is vain 
to have been consecrated to God's service by the 
Sacrament of Baptism, and thus to be inscribed and 
recognized among the number of His " called" ones, 
ecclesiastically. The Jews were thus consecrated, 
but God cast them from Him as an unclean thing. 
They were thus His called ones, but they were not 
ultimately chosen by Him ; and in them, therefore, 
do we see the appalling truth of that general propo- 
sition, which applies equally to us — " Many are 
called, but few are chosen." 

Without this opening of the heart, it is vain to 
trust in the fact that we are members of a Christian 
church, however apostolical, and subscribers to a 
Christian creed, however pure, and intitled to par- 
take in Christian ordinances, however scriptural. 
The Jews too " rested in the law/' (reposed them- 
selves in satisfied assurance on the favours God 
had shown them,) " and made their boast of God." 
But that very law condemned them, and those very 



SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 97 

privileges, — because trusted in presumptuously as 
ends, instead of being used conscientiously as means, 
— brought shame and ruin on them. 

Without this opening of the heart, it is vain to 
have applied our understanding to the truths which 
have been taught us as baptized Catechumens. For 
the Jews too " knew God's will, and approved the 
things that were excellent, being instructed out of 
the law, and were confident that they exclusively 
were guides of the blind, a light of them which are 
in darkness, instructors of the foolish, teachers of 
babes, having the form of knowledge and of the 
truth in the law ;" — and yet the God of this world 
blinded their eyes, and the Gospel was hid from 
them, and they were lost ! 

Nay, without this opening of the heart, it were 
vain to have a zeal for Christianity, an interest for 
its defence, or its establishment and propagation. 
— For the Jews too had this interest for Judaism. 
They had a zeal for God, but not according to 
knowledge; and therefore, " being ignorant of God's 
righteousness, and going about to establish their 
own righteousness, they did not submit themselves 
to the righteousness of God." 

Attention, therefore, to God is something more 
than this. Nay, not merely more, (for it is not by 
accumulation merely that we grow in piety as we 
may in worldly wealth,) but something different, 



98 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 

and of another kind. It is different from assent to 
truth, from understanding of truth, from zeal for 
truth. It is the personal embracing of truth, — the 
pressing it to our bosom, the taking it into our 
heart, the inhaling it as the breath of a new and 
higher life which by it begins to play within the 
soul. It is a waking up of mind which can never 
be described in words, but can only be illustrated 
by reference to analogous experiences. Who knows 
not the difference between seeing objects and pay- 
ing attention to them ? — Nay, between attending to 
objects and being personally interested in them ? — 
Nay, between being interested in them as means, 
and absorbed in them as ends? It has even become 
proverbial to speak of seeing, and yet not seeing ; 
hearing, and yet not hearing ; because there may 
be perception without remarking and taking notice 
of; — that is, without a consciousness of the percep- 
tive act accompanying the perception, and associat- 
ing it with other thoughts, and thereby giving to 
it relation and place in our memory. Such a no- 
ticing of religious truths is the first act of a real 
attention. And the second is, a personal interest 
in them ; that is, not merely a noticing, and there- 
by forming an acquaintance with them, — but a no- 
ticing them with reference to, and in connexion with, 
ourselves — our state of mind, our previously existing 
wants and wishes, to which they are applicable, and 



SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 99 

to which therefore we apply them. You go into a 
repository of various goods ; you cast a vacant 
glance around upon the articles that it contains; 
but your attention is arrested by something which 
" strikes you," as the phrase is, — that is, which falls 
in with some existing train of thought, or feeling, 
or desire, in your mind, — which, therefore, you say, 
suits you, will do for you, "answers" to the secret 
inquiry within you. And so it is with Religion. 
We attend to truths as we find them suitable to some 
existing want of our soul, we welcome them because 
they answer to the cravings of the inner man. O 
that we knew more of those wants ! O that we 
felt more strongly those cravings ! So would every 
thought and word of Scripture be all a-glow with 
interest to us — " more to be desired than gold, yea, 
than much fine gold ; sweeter also than honey and 
the honey-comb." " It has happened to myself," 
says a Clergyman, " that a parishioner, who sud- 
denly became ill without hope of recovery, con- 
fessed — e I know no more of these things than 
a child/ — I answered, 'Why, you have regularly 
come to church, and I have spoken plainly enough 
to you, and you seemed to listen.' — ' Yes, Sir; and 
if you were to speak the same words now I should 
understand them ; but it is one thing to listen, and 
another to heed : I wish to understand you now' " 
— God grant to us this wish ! 



100 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 

But this is not all which is included in our 
attending to the things of God. For our attention 
is then first complete when it is concentrated in 
and absorbed by the objects themselves to which it 
may be turned ; when we do not merely catch at 
them, in our progress towards some farther end, as 
means that may conduce to its attainment; but 
when we pause upon them for their own sake, as an 
end gained, a truth discovered, a treasure found, 
which fixes every thought, and satisfies every de- 
sire. Whence it results, that where there is the 
most intense Attention, there is often the least 
Recollection; because Recollection depends upon 
our linking-on the new conceptions which present 
themselves, to others by which they are surround- 
ed, or by which they are preceded or followed ; 
while Attention, in its fulness, sees only one ob- 
ject — is occupied exclusively with one single mass 
of thought, into which the spirit passes and be- 
comes absorbed. This is that rapt Attention which 
the Psalmist speaks of when he says, " I opened 
my mouth and drew in my breath, for my delight 
was in thy commandments." 

And this, then, is the Attention which Religion 
deserves and demands. Not mere assent to cer- 
tain truths, but the moving of the spirit towards 
those truths as bearing on our everlasting welfare. 
Not an outward perception only, but an inward 



SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 101 

Awakening ; not an approval only, but a love ; not 
a contemplative judgment merely, but a stirring, 
energizing work within the soul, which rouses the 
conceptions into new activity, throws them into new 
associations, fuses them into new masses. Indiffer- 
ence passing onward into Earnestness. Cold pre- 
sumption melting down into fervent anxiety. Un- 
founded expectation becoming dashed with reason- 
able fears. The general ideas of God, and Christ, 
and sinfulness, and danger, and pardon, and obedi- 
ence, and heaven, and hell, brought into particular 
relation to our Self — our own individual being — 
and assuming thus a magnitude, a reality, and a 
solemnity, they never had before. God, in a word, 
confronted with our soul ; and therefore, our rela- 
tion to Him, dependance upon Him, obligations, 
negligences, and rebellions, towards Him — our 
whole dissimilarity from His tremendous Majesty 
and Holiness — flashing on us in a light, bright as 
the Sun at noon-day, and revealing to us at the 
same time the imperative necessity of some personal 
transaction between us and him, in order to our 
safety and our peace. And herewith, therefore, 
the springing up of thoughts we never knew be- 
fore ; the opening of a prospect into which we 
never hitherto had looked; the sinking of the pre- 
sent and the visible before the mighty forms of 
spiritual objects looming in the awful distance ; the 



102 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 

throwing forth the spirit out of one world into 
another ; the passing onward into a new hemisphere 
lighted by new stars, and bright with fruits and 
flowers before unknown. 

And how then shall such attention be awakened ? 
Whence shall we derive this new impulse towards 
religious truth? — The Scripture answer is — This is 
the work of God. For the human heart is a great 
mystery : it is undergoing constantly innumerable 
changes which we cannot fathom, still less can, of 
ourselves alone, produce or control. We feel, in 
meditating on it, as we should in looking out upon 
the vast expanse and never-ceasing flow of ocean ; 
whose winds, and tides, and currents, we know to 
be not entirely fortuitous, but subjected to law and 
rule ; but yet to which our influence extends not, 
and of which we can avail ourselves only by a 
watchful dexterity. Much may be done by seizing 
on and improving occasions, but nothing to produce 
them. And, just similarly, — who has absolute power 
over the human mind ? Who can discover the se- 
cret causes of its ever-changing tides of feeling? 
Who can trace the various currents of its thoughts ? 
Who can " gather in his fists" the winds that sweep 
across its bosom? Who can say to its troubled 
billows, " Thus far shalt thou go, but no further ; 
and here shall thy proud waves be stayed "? Alas ! 
it is deceitful above all things, — who can know it 



SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 103 

but the all-wise God ? It is fluctuating and un- 
manageable, — who can rule it but the All-powerful 
God ? " The way of man is not in himself ; it is 
not in man that walketh to direct his steps." " The 
preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of 
the tongue, are from the Lord." 

And, therefore, all Awakening of the attention 
to Religion, — all " opening of the heart," to use the 
language of the Bible, — all " effectual Calling," to 
employ the phrase of technical Theology, — is in 
Scripture constantly ascribed to God. It was " the 
Lord" who " opened the heart of Lydia that she 
attended to the things that were spoken by Paul :" 
(Acts xvi. 14.) It was because " the hand of the 
Lord was with the men of Cyprus and Cyrene," 
that " a great number believed and turned unto the 
Lord:" (Acts xi. 21.) "No man cometh unto 
me," says Jesus, " except the Father which hath 
sent me draw him ; for it is written in the prophets, 
They shall be all taught of God; every man there- 
fore that hath heard and learned of the Father 
cometh unto me :" (John vi. 44, 45.) " Who then 
is Paul," asks the Apostle, " and who is Apollos, 
but ministers," — agents and instruments — "by 
whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every 
man ? I have planted ; Apollos watered, but God 
gave the increase:" (1 Cor. iii. 5, 6.) " God," he 
says again, " hath called you unto the fellowship of 



104 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 

his son Jesus Christ our Lord :" (1 Cor. i. 9.) " For 
ye see your calling, Brethren, how that not many 
wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not 
many noble, have called you, but God hath chosen 
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, 
and God hath chosen the weak things of the world 
to confound the things which are mighty — that no 
flesh should glory in his presence ; for of Him are 
ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us 
wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and 
redemption, that, according as it is written, He 
that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Cor. 
i. 26—31.) 

And this divine origination of all Attention to 
Religion, is strongly intimated in the very phrase 
which is so frequently used for it in Scripture, 
and which occurs in the latter passages quoted just 
above, where this influence on the hitherto indiffer- 
ent heart is termed a " Calling ;" and God is said 
to " call" men to himself. For " to call " a per- 
son, in Scripture language, is not only (in the first 
place) To address ourselves to him ; to call forth 
his notice of us ; as when God complains by Jere- 
miah, " I spoke unto you, rising up early and 
speaking, but ye heard not ; and I called you, but 
ye answered not." Nor is it only (in the second 
place) To call into our presence and society — to 
summon and invite to us ; as the king " called his 



SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 105 

servants to him and delivered unto them his 
goods ;" and the guests were " called" to the mar- 
riage supper. But it expresses (in the third place) 
To call out, call forth, select, bring near to us by 
authoritative influence ; as when God says of Israel, 
" I have taken thee from the ends of the earth, 
and called thee from the chief men thereof, and 
said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I have chosen 
thee." 

In all which senses God calls every reader of 
these pages to give himself to Him. Do you look 
upon the solid earth on which you tread, and feel it 
to be the representative and work of Unseen Might ? 
Do you trace from link to link the ever-lengthening 
series of causes and effects which nature presents 
to you, and irresistibly conclude that still there 
must be One Cause more beyond them all? Do 
you consider the heavens the work of God's fingers, 
the moon and the stars which He has ordained, till 
their very silence becomes vocal to you, and you 
hear them " singing as they shine, The hand that 
made us is divine?" — In all these works of God 
there is a call for your attention, to his being, to 
his wisdom, to his eternal power and Godhead. 

And are you enjoying manifold privileges of in- 
struction, worship, and church fellowship, — the 
knowledge of God's word, the invitations of his 
Gospel, the open access to his throne of grace ? 



106 SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 

These are calls of God and introductions to his 
gracious presence — these bring you into his So- 
ciety and within the influences of his Spirit. And 
it is by the use of these privileges, and by the in- 
haling, through them, of that quickening Spirit, 
that you will rise into the Experience of that in- 
ward Call which may arrest your very soul, and draw 
forth all its best affections towards your heavenly 
Father. O if we should neglect these gentle assi- 
duities of our God ! O, if after all that he has 
spoken to us, by his Works, his Providences, his 
Word, his Church, his own beloved Son, we should 
still be " dull of hearing !" — we should doze and 
dream on in the torpor of Indifference, till " the 
great cry" shall be made, " The Bridegroom 
cometh;" and we start up from sleep — too late! 
Awake now, thou sleeper, and call upon thy God I 
He calls to you. Call you to Him ! His voice 
now sounds to you the tender note of Invitation. 
O may yours respond in that of reverent attention 
— " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth !" Let 
no man obstinately say, " It is God 's work, — this 
awakening, — and therefore I must leave it to him." 
— Say rather, " It is God's work, and therefore I 
will seek it from him !" All our encouragement 
and hope lies in this assurance, that " He giveth 
to all men liberally and upbraideth not." God's 
work it is most truly, but not the less is it man's 



SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. 107 

work too. For this, — as all his operations, in na- 
ture, providence, and grace, — this is effected by 
Him not without, but with, the subject on which he 
works — not without, but with, the various human 
means that influence the mind, — those means accu- 
mulated by Himself, adapted by Himself to the in- 
tended end, and constituted by Himself to be suf- 
ficient for that end. And those means are now 
before you, and around you, and within you. It is 
God who has brought these thoughts before your 
mind this day — it is God who is, by them, moving 
various feelings in your hearts — it is God whose 
Spirit is this moment wrestling with your reluct- 
ance, and urging you to awake and arise, and pray ; 
and whispering to you so earnestly, though gently, 
"Turn you to your God!" — O God, may every 
Reader of these pages turn to thee ! Do Thou 
open his heart to attend to the things that have 
been spoken in them ! Do Thou so shine out upon 
his mind, that he may cry with newly-awaken- 
ed earnestness — "Lord, what wilt thou have me 
to do!" 



108 



CHAPTER IV. 

SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 

The first step in Religion is the Awakening of 
the Attention to the things of God. But this 
attention, by whatever circumstances roused, can- 
not be sustained but in proportion as we go on 
to the Understanding of those things. Feeling is a 
legitimate and essential means of determining the 
thoughts towards God ; but genuine Feeling can 
maintain its life and energy only as it is nourished 
by increasing thoughts. The Illumination of the 
Mind must both deepen and direct the Awakening 
of the Heart. 

Illumination, therefore, is the next step in the 
Process of Developement of the Spiritual Life 
which claims our attention. And this is so essen- 
tial a preparative and part of Piety, that St. Paul in 
his Epistle to the Hebrews uses the term to ex- 
press the whole work of Conversion — " after ye 
were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflic- 
tions ;" and the Scriptures generally, express both 
the substance of Christianity, and the experience 
of it, by the term " light." " Show forth," says 
St. Peter, " the praises of him who hath called you 
out of darkness into his marvellous light." "Ye 



SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 109 

were sometimes," says St. Paul, " darkness, but 
now are ye light, in the Lord ; walk as children of 
light." All which passages (and there are many 
others) clearly showing that true Religion depends 
on new and constantly enlarging views of God and 
of his truth, and supplies a remedy for the Igno- 
rance, as well as for the Indifference, of our fallen 
nature. 

To be convinced of which let us consider, first, 
that There may be much ignorance of God even in 
the midst of outward advantages. 

Of this we have an instance in the case of the 
Apostle Paul before his conversion. He had en- 
joyed all the advantages which a Jew could possess 
towards knowing God, and with his characteristic 
energy he had improved those advantages to the 
utmost. " Circumcised the eighth day, of the 
stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew 
of the Hebrews ; as touching the law a Pharisee ;" 
— one of those, therefore, who " knew God's will, 
and approved the things that are more excellent, 
being instructed out of the law, having the form of 
knowledge and of the truth in the law;" — nay, 
"profiting in the Jew's religion above many his 
equals in his own nation, being more exceedingly 
zealous of the traditions of his fathers." And yet, 
to this man we find Ananias sent by God, saying, 
" The God of our Fathers hath chosen thee that 
thou shouldest know his will and see that Just One 



110 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 

and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth." And 
we find St. Paul himself, though he declared before 
the Jews, "I am verily a man which am a Jew, 
brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel and 
taught according to the perfect manner of the law of 
the Fathers, and was zealous towards God as ye all 
are this day ;" yet, intimating in another place, to 
Timothy, that the only possible excuse for his re- 
sistance to the will of God as manifested by his 
Son was that he " did it ignorantly in unbelief." 

We see then in this instance how great may be 
the darkness of the soul concerning God, even whilst 
the understanding has been carefully instructed in 
religion. We may know about God without know- 
ing God. We may hear of him by the hearing of the 
ear, and yet our eye may not see him. There is a 
traditional knowledge of God as " the God of our 
Fathers," which is not much more efficacious than 
that which even the Heathen enjoyed who, " when 
they knew God, glorified him not as God, neither were 
thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and 
their foolish heart was darkened." It is like the 
knowledge that we may possess of our forefathers, 
— their names and relation to us, and some dim 
tradition of their doings ; — as compared with that 
which we enjoy of our immediate parents, whose 
sentiments and character are every day displayed 
to us. The Jews of old, with all their manifold 
advantages, were thus ignorant of God. " Ye say, 



SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. Ill 

indeed," says Jesus to them, "that He is your God ; 
yet ye have not known him : — he that sent me is 
true, whom ye know not? Too many, even of the 
early Christians also, blessed as they were with 
the fuller light which streamed from Christ, were 
thus ignorant of God. " They profess that they 
know God," says St. Paul, "but in works they 
deny him." And St. John solemnly warns all such 
self-deceivers, "He that saith I know God and 
keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the 
truth is not in him." O it is an awful thing to 
have the intellect enlightened while the heart re- 
mains dark and cold ! To be familiar with the 
sound of truth, but never to have unclosed our 
eyes to look upon the truth itself! To be "grop- 
ing at noon-day as the blind gropeth in darkness I" 
" This," says our Lord, " is the condemnation, 
" that light is come into the world, and men loved 
darkness rather than light because their deeds were 
evil!" 

But more than this. There may be even some 
practical, as well as theoretical, knowledge of God, 
and yet this may extend only to some parts of his 
character, and still leave much darkness on the 
mind concerning its most essential features. St. 
Paul, before his conversion, was not like those 
worldly and ungodly Jews who shut out the truth 
by their unrighteousness. He could declare before 
them all, " I have lived in all good conscience be- 



112 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 

fore God unto this day," and assures Timothy that 
he " served God from his forefathers with a pure 
conscience." And yet this very Paul, as regarded 
the most essential attribute of God, and the most 
important conceptions of His will, was dark and 
blind; — so much so, that the knowledge which 
broke in upon him at his conversion he speaks of as 
a new revelation. (Gal. i. 16.) Never, then, let 
men be satisfied with dim conceptions of the cha- 
racter and will of God ; with half-truths only in Re- 
ligion. Happy, truly, is the man who is practically 
affected by any thoughts of God, however obscure ; 
far happier than he who with his understanding 
open has his heart still closed. An ignorant and 
even a superstitious Piety is better than no Piety at 
all. A mistaken endeavour to please God is far su- 
perior to cold indifference to Him. A zeal, even 
without knowledge, is better, — so far as regards the 
man's own mind and state, — than no zeal at all. 
And we would rather see a man like Saul, even "ex- 
ceedingly mad against the saints," provided that 
like him "he verily thinks he ought to do many 
things contrary to them ;" than a man like Gallio, 
" caring for none of these things;" or like Festus, set- 
ting down all topics of Religion — even the most mo- 
mentous—as " questions about their own supersti- 
tion and of one Jesus who was dead, and is affirm- 
ed to be alive !" But then, we must say this com- 
paratively only, and with anxious fear and trem- 



SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 113 

bling for all who suffer themselves, while the true 
light shineth round them, to close their eyes and 
heart to better thoughts of God. Paul does not 
the less blame himself for his former conduct, be- 
cause of the ignorance which produced it. He 
does not the less exclaim, with all the self-abhor- 
rence of true penitence, and with its deep sense of 
personal guilt, — " I was a blasphemer, and a per- 
secutor, and injurious, yea, the chief of sinners !' 
And, alas ! therefore, for any man who contents 
himself with fragmentary notions of God, as the 
God of Nature, and of Providence, and of Justice, 
and of Law ; as the benevolent Benefactor and the 
righteous Governor, and the protecting Patron, of 
his fathers, and his fathers' church — and sees him 
not as the God of Grace ; understands not his spe- 
cific truth and will as revealed in the Gospel of his 
Son, and therefore " being ignorant of God's righte- 
ousness, and going about to establish his own righte- 
ousness, does not submit himself to the righteous- 
ness of God." O how much of reverence may there 
be for God, and trembling worship of his name; 
while yet it may be said of us, as Jesus did of the 
Samaritans, " Ye worship ye know not what ;" and 
as Paul of the Athenians — " As I passed by and 
beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this in- 
scription, To the unknown God : — whom, therefore, 
ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." 
Such, then, being the natural Ignorance, both 

i 



114 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 

theoretical and practical, of God, which may exist 
notwithstanding manifold advantages ; let us consi- 
der, in the second place, that The Removal of this 
Ignorance is essential to true Christian Piety. Not, 
indeed, that the existence of Piety depends on the 
degree of distinctness with which we may perceive 
the character of God. Very obscure conceptions 
may give birth to genuine devotion. But the purity 
and the moral influence of Piety do depend upon the 
general light which may be thrown around that 
character, and the aspect which it presents to us. 
To love and serve God as we ought, we must 
know Him as he is. " This," says our Lord, " is 
life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." All hope of 
eternal life, and all fitness for its enjoyment, de- 
pend on our becoming acquainted with the Father 
as he is revealed to us by Christ ; for only such a 
revelation — the revelation of grace and truth — can 
win the affections and elevate the character. 

For genuine Piety is not merely Reverence of 
certain unseen powers by which the world is actu- 
ated — nor assent to certain historical facts which 
are reported to us — nor following certain rules of 
conduct which are imposed upon us by authority, 
or custom, or which commend themselves to us as 
advantageous, or rational, or becoming — but it is 
the Exercise of the affections towards a personal 
Being, and the elevation of the character by the 



SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION, 115 

influence of those affections, into similarity with 
His. It is not mere belief of God, but belief in 
God ; that is, not merely belief of his Existence, 
but reliance on his Character.* " With the heart 
man believeth unto righteousness." And the 
heart can repose its confidence in another only 
as it knows that other ; it can love only as it be- 
comes acquainted with what is loveable. A child 
who has been sent for education to a distant coun- 
try, may have some natural reverence for the Fa- 
ther whom he knows to be at home, and some de- 
sire that the reports which he may hear about him- 
self should be satisfactory to him ; but he can love 
that Father, (that is, personal affections can spring 
up towards him,) only as he learns to know that 
Father ; only as his letters and communications un- 
fold to him something of his character, and of his 

* When we keep this distinction in mind, how vain are all the 
difficulties and objections that the man of mere Understanding 
urges about the impossibility of assenting to propositions which 
we do not fully comprehend ! It is not in assent to propositions, 
whether many or few, simple or abstruse, that saving Faith con- 
sists ; it is in yielding up our confidence to Him who makes those 
propositions ; that confidence being grounded upon facts, (not 
speculations,) which exhibit to us his character. Surely I might 
have — and ought to have — the fullest confidence in the dicta and 
directions of Newton upon any point of practical Astronomy, 
though I might not understand, and therefore could not intelli- 
gently assent to, any one book of his Principia. We may know 
God, so as to confide in him and love him, without being able to 
understand God. 



116 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 

feeling towards himself ; or when at last, returning 
to the paternal home, he is pressed to the paternal 
bosom, and feels, for the first time in its fulness, 
what it is to have a Father, and to be a Son. And 
the reason why, with all that fear of the unseen, 
and that reverence for the mysterious, which must 
be allowed to be almost universal in mankind 
throughout all stages of their civilization, there is 
still so little practical influence of these feelings on 
the heart and life, is just because men know not 
Him before whom they tremble ; they behold him 
not, shining forth full-orbed in all the splendour of 
his perfect character, as the Father of their spirits, 
the God whose very being is Love. 

For who can love God while ignorant or mis- 
trustful of God's love to him? Who can possess 
that spirit of filial confidence, and joy, and hope, 
and buoyant energy, which is the proper spirit of 
Christian Piety, while his conscience is unpacified 
and his sense of alienation unremoved ? We must 
in such a temper either boldly throw off our allegi- 
ance to Him, or we must serve him by constraint 
and with a heavy heart* Is this last the case 
with any one who is now reading these lines ? Are 
you well disposed towards Religion, and yet find it 
wake no note of joy within your bosom ? Are you 
a conscientious person, and yet sensible of a feeling 
in you which, if you would let it speak, would 



SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 117 

say, " I would indulge myself away from God if I 
durst ?" Are your very best feelings towards him 
more those of a Servant to his Master, than of a 
Friend towards his Benefactor, or of a Son towards 
his Father ? Then, do you not need Illumination ? 
Is there not something in the idea of God to which 
you have not hitherto given heed ? Is not the very 
key to his whole character still undiscovered by 
you ? Can you say that you know God truly if 
you know him not as your God, — your Friend and 
Father, — to whom you can exclaim with David, 
" Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is 
none upon earth whom I desire beside Thee ?" Do 
you not need, in short, that the God of your fathers 
should be unveiled to you as he was to the Apostle 
Paul, that you might " know his will?" (Acts xxii. 
14.) That you might know his will : this is what 
we need in order to a genuine Christian piety : not 
his works only ; not his greatness and his power, 
and his sovereign authority alone ; not his general 
character of wisdom and benevolence merely ; but 
" his Will," in that particular sense in which the 
term is used by Ananias to St. Paul, and by the 
Apostle himself in his Epistles, — His gracious Will, 
his purposes of condescending and forgiving love, 
his Will to save sinners, and justify the ungodly, 
and bless the undeserving, and receive back to his 
arms the most desponding penitent who feels he is 



1L8 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 

no longer worthy to be called his son, and cries 
" Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before 
Thee." That Will which St. Paul extols to the 
Ephesians, when he tells them " God has predesti- 
nated us unto the adoption of children to himself, 
according to the good pleasure of his Will, to the 
praise of the glory of his grace;" and to the Gala- 
tians, when he says that Jesus " gave himself for 
our sins, that he might deliver us from this present 
evil world, according to the will of God and our Fa- 
ther." Such was the Illumination which St. Paul 
had need of, notwithstanding all his previous know- 
ledge, and conscientiousness, and zeal, to render him 
a child of God indeed ; such did he receive when 
" it pleased God who separated him from his mo- 
ther's womb, and called him by his grace, to reveal 
his Son in him ;" and such do we need also, such 
we must by similar means receive, if we would rise 
into the faith, the love, the dignity, and the de- 
votedness, of Christian men. O indeed we need it ! 
Far more, all of us, than we have yet attained to ! 
With far more comprehension of the breadth, and 
length, and depth, and height, of that love of 
Christ which passeth knowledge, if we would be 
filled with all the fulness of God ! 

And how, then, let us thirdly ask, is this removal 
of our natural ignorance of God, this Illumination 
of the mind, which is so essential to the first up- 
springing of filial Piety in the heart, to be effected 1 ? 



SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 119 

In proportion, I reply, as we contemplate that full 
manifestation of God which has been vouchsafed to 
us in his own beloved Son, Jesus Christ " The God 
of our fathers hath chosen thee," said Ananias to 
Saul, " that thou shouldst know his will, and see 
that Just One, and shouldst hear the voice of his 
mouth." He is the source of all true Illumination. 
From his countenance stream forth those rays of 
the Father's love, which fire the heart, and melt 
the will, of man. " As no man knoweth the Son, 
but the Father; so no man knoweth the Father, but 
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal 
him." (Matt. xi. 27.) " God, who commanded the 
light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our 
hearts, to give the light of the Knowledge of the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Cor. 
iv. 6.) " No man hath seen God at any time ; the 
only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the 
Father, he hath declared him." (John i. 18.) 
" The Word was made flesh, and we beheld his 
glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Fa- 
ther, full of grace and truth" — that is, resplendent 
with just that peculiar glory which constitutes the 
very being of God, — the fullest, truest, most un- 
changeable grace or love. (John i. 14.) I mrght 
refer you simply to the history of man, to show you 
how, before the coming of Christ, this feature of 
the Father's character was dim and doubtful — how, 
among the benighted Heathen, fear made gods, and 



120 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 

cruelty invested them with attributes of fierceness 
and implacability — how, even among the Jews, 
though for the spiritual penitent there was many a 
ray of mildest pity gleaming through the darkness 
and the tempest of Mount Sinai, yet the general 
aspect of the law-giving, and the law-avenging Je- 
hovah, was austere and stern, so that St. John de- 
clares, " The law was given by Moses, but grace and 
truth came by Jesus Christ." But I would go far- 
ther than historical deduction, and assert broadly 
and beforehand, that it is not in Nature, in Events, 
or in Reason, to unveil to us, with a certainty suffi- 
cient for our Peace and Hope, the love of God to- 
wards man ; and that in the personal communica- 
tions only which the Father has vouchsafed us by 
his Son can we truly know him as he is. What is 
called Natural Religion, is indeed the ground-work 
of Christianity, but it can never be the substitute 
for it. It is the awaking of those feelings which 
prepare for, anticipate, nay, demand, a Revelation 
from Heaven ; but, so far from rendering such a 
Revelation unnecessary, so far from having' the 
power of self-expansion, so as of itself to grow up 
and unfold into Christianity, the very fact of its 
existence is just that which renders a Revelation in- 
dispensable, as the supplement to its incipient, but 
insufficient, workings — the chaos of emotion which 
it stirs within the mind is just that which requires 
the influence of the all-regulating and inform- 



SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 121 

ing Word of truth. Because darkness covers the 
face of the earth, and yet over that darkness 
the Spirit of life sits brooding, therefore God has 
said " Let there be light !" The glimpses of the 
Divine character afforded to mankind by Nature 
and Providence, teach them indeed those prelimi- 
nary lessons to which the fuller manifestations of 
Revelation are supplementary. But all the inti- 
mations of Nature and of Providence are dark, im- 
perfect, perplexing, without the key which Chris- 
tianity presents. They furnish the component let- 
ters of the Alphabet, but flung abroad without 
arrangement; and even when we laboriously collect 
these elements together, and piece out with them 
some few words and sentences ; we find that we 
have only just begun the language, and got frag- 
ments only of the truths of God, and we instinctive- 
ly cry out for more — more definite, more extensive, 
more systematic, revelations of his will. All we 
reach is mere conjecture ; and only by the inter- 
pretation of the Author of these fragments, only 
by the plainer history of the books of God, can we 
make full sense of — even if we can at all decypher 
— the puzzling hieroglyphics on the vast and awful 
Pyramid of Nature, and the vague mysterious 
legends of Tradition. 

Nay, yet more than this. Not only do the de- 
ductions of the understanding from the things and 
events around us, not tell us clearly of the graci- 



122 SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 

ous, Fatherly, character of God ; but they tell us 
of the reverse. We learn from them, not so much 
the truth of pardoning mercy, as of avenging jus- 
tice.' The world is full of punishment — prolonged, 
and often inexorable punishment. Almost every 
transgression and disobedience, manifestly receives 
its just recompense of reward. Not only wilful, but 
even involuntary and heedless infractions of the laws 
of Nature and Society, are by the natural course of 
things continually bringing with them trouble, pain, 
disease, and death. The voice of God concerning 
transgression, if spoken forth at all in Nature, is a 
voice of severity and condemnation. As the thun- 
ders and lightnings of Mount Sinai were but one 
particular instance of those general tempests which 
so often rage in the natural world, so the denuncia- 
tions of Mount Sinai were but a particular expres- 
sion of the general truth which Nature is continu- 
ally uttering — "God is a consuming fire." Even 
the seeming exceptions prove this. Even the tem- 
porary delays of punishment confirm this. Even 
the letting sinners have their own way for a season, 
only brings upon them more effectually and exten- 
sively the misery which is annexed to Sin. Punish- 
ment may let the Sinner get for a time the start, 
but with unwearied pertinacity does it track his 
steps, and inevitably springs upon him at last. 
" The Lord is known by the judgment that he exe- 



SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. 123 

cuteth ; the wicked is snared in the work of his 
own hands." 

And O then, blessed be God, that "having in 
times past spoken to the Fathers by the Prophets, 
he hath at last spoken unto us by his Son !" Bless- 
ed be God that " the Son of God is come and hath 
given us an understanding that we may know him 
that is true, yea, may be in him that is true"— 
enter into union and communion with the unseen 
Father — " through his Son Jesus Christ !" No 
longer need we now cry " Show us the Father," for 
" he that hath seen Jesus hath seen the Father." No 
longer need we fear and doubt about the Father's 
infinite compassion to every returning penitent, 
for this compassion Christ has manifested, by ac- 
cumulated proofs, in every possible way ; — by his 
teaching, by his character, by his words and deeds 
of never-wearied pity, and above all, by his sacrifi- 
cial and vicarious death. " In this was manifested 
the love of God towards us, because that God sent 
his only-begotten Son into the world that we might 
live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved 
God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be 
the propitiation for our Sins." " For, scarcely for 
a righteous man will one die; yet, perad venture, 
for a good man some would even dare to die ; but 
God commendeth his love to us, in that while we 
were yet sinners Christ died for us /" 



124 



CHAPTER V. 

SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 

The object of revelation is to meet the fallen 
condition of mankind in all its extent, and to bring 
back the soul in all its exercises, to God. It ap- 
plies itself, therefore, to the Heart, to remove its 
natural Indifference to God; and to the Under- 
standing, to dispel its natural Ignorance concerning 
God : but it stops not here, for this alone would 
leave untouched the main-spring of our nature, 
the deep and influential Will. This, alas ! is na- 
turally averse to God, It grows up in us as a will 
" of the flesh," and therefore cannot but be con- 
trary to Him who is Spirit, for " the flesh lusteth 
always against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the 
flesh." And consequently all Attention to God's 
truth, and Acquaintance with his character, will 
but deepen our Aversion to Him, because it height- 
ens our perception of the natural contrariety which 
exists between us, unless there come the influences 
of his Spirit to subdue that natural opposition, and, 
by the seed of the Divine Word, to beget in us a 
love of God as our Father, and a will entirely de- 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 125 

voted to Him as our Friend. " That which is bom 
of the flesh," says Jesus, " is flesh ;" and that only 
" which is born of the Spirit is spirit ; and, there- 
fore, marvel not that I say unto you, Ye must be 
born again." 

New birth, then, or Regeneration, or, as it is 
elsewhere called, Repentance, or change of mind 
towards God — and Conversion, or returning back 
into allegiance to Him — that inward revolution 
in the moving powers of man which makes him 
thenceforth love what had been irksome to him, 
and give himself to what he had avoided — this is 
the topic which now demands our serious medita- 
tion. May God enable us to derive from it per- 
sonal improvement ! 

It will be my endeavour to show — First, the 
Nature of that Regeneration which I have just 
mentioned ; Secondly — the Necessity of our per- 
sonal experience of it in order to Christian Piety ; 
and Thirdly — the Means by which it is developed 
in the soul. 

SECTION I. 

THE NATURE OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 

Regeneration, in the sense which we are now 
considering, is The awakening in the soul of new 
sentiments and dispositions, and therewith new pur- 
poses, towards God. Of this meaning of the term 



126 THE NATURE OF 

we have sufficient evidence in the First Epistle of 
St. Peter, chapter i. 14 — 25. For in this passage 
we find the Apostle, first, reminding the Converts 
of the Dispersion of their " former lusts according 
to which they fashioned themselves when ignorant 
of God," — that is, of the tendencies and dispositions 
of the inward will, by which their outward charac- 
ter had been formed. Then, he admonishes them 
that they had been called to an entirely different 
state of mind and character — even to be holy as 
God himself is holy. Then, he tells them that in 
obeying this call they had " purified their souls 
through the Spirit," — they had cleansed their in- 
ward man, " their souls" by spiritual influence, not 
merely their outward man, their bodies, by ceremo- 
nial washing.* By which the Apostle means, as 
the twenty-first verse clearly shows, that they had 
cleared their minds of those turbid passions of 
dislike and fear of God, which were necessarily 
connected with the dominion of their former lusts, 
(for whoever is living contrary to God cannot 
like God,) and had admitted new and purer feel- 

* The same implied antithesis we have in Acts xv. 9, where 
St. Peter contends, in opposition to those who demanded that the 
Gentile converts should go through the ceremonial purifications 
and the bodily circumcision of the law, that God had already 
" purified their hearts by faith." See also 1 Peter iii. 21, where 
the antithesis is expressed. 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 127 

ings towards him — had called upon him as their 
Father (verse 17); had " through Christ believed 
in God," as reconciled to them and loving them, 
and therefore had now put their "faith and hope in 
God" And then, St. Peter goes on to exhort them 
(verse 23), that "being thus born again;" or rather, 
"having been thus born again ;"* (which, you per- 
ceive, is only the repetition, in another form, of 
the idea expressed before by the words "having 
purified your souls through the Spirit ;" and which 
is expressed again in chapter ii. 3. by " having 
tasted that the Lord is gracious ;") they should 
thenceforth develope the new seed of love and con- 
fidence implanted in them ; they should nourish 
those new sentiments towards God which had been 
infused into them by his truth, and " as newborn 
babes desire the pure milk of the word that they 
might grow thereby/' 

To which passage of St. Peter we find another 
remarkably similar, in the Epistle of St. Paul to the 
Ephesians ; extending from chapter iv. 17. to v. 2. 
Where observe how, with the greatest diversity of 
words, nay, and of forms of thought, the thoughts 
themselves, the grand Ideas of the Sacred writers, 
are identical : — for this is Inspiration ; this is their 
being influenced by the common Spirit of the truth, 
in one and all the same. St. Paul, you will perceive, 

* ' Avaysyivvriftivoi. 



128 THE NATURE OF 

is describing the same revolution in the will which 
by St. Peter is called " New birth," but which he 
denominates " Renewal in the spirit of the mind." 
" This I say, therefore, that ye henceforth walk not 
as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 
having the understanding darkened, being alienated 
from the life of God through the ignorance that is 
in them, because of the blindness of their heart ;" 
(here we have those three manifestations of empty 
indhTerence, ignorance, and aversion, the removal 
of which we have been considering in order, and 
the sum of which is expressed by St. Peter when he 
says, " Ye fashioned yourselves according to your 
former lusts in your ignorance ;") but " that ye 
put off, concerning the former conversation, the 
old man, which is corrupt according to the deceit- 
ful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind" 
— become new and different in the inward spirit or 
Will, which is the source of all the manifestations 
which emerge into the consciousness or Mind; 
(where we have the same idea which St. Peter has 
expressed by " purifying your souls through the 
Spirit," and " being born again" to a disposition 
congenial with that of God, a will of the Spirit and 
no longer a will of the flesh ;) " and that ye put on 
the new man which after God is created in righte- 
ousness and true holiness," — which is equivalent to 
St. Peter's exhortation, " See that ye love one an- 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 129 

other with a pure heart fervently ;" and " lay aside 
all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies and envies, 
and all evil speakings ;" (compare Eph. iv. 25 — v. 2 ;) 
and "grow by the word of God." 

And this same revolution in the Will is expressed 
in other parts of Scripture by many different terms, 
none of them, perhaps, entirely equivalent in force, 
but each exhibiting different phases of the same 
Spiritual fact, even as with every movement that 
we make we see an object from a different point of 
view, and define its form and position by reference 
to some new neighbouring object which presents 
itself as we pass on. Whence we gain the general 
rule of sound interpretation, — never to press any 
one figurative term to its utmost meaning, or exclu- 
sively, but to seek for the general Idea, of which 
each separate figure represents only some one par- 
ticular aspect. Of these various terms, the prin- 
cipal are Conversion — Repentance — New life and 
New creation — and Regeneration or New birth. 
And they exhibit to us, — if we consider the seve- 
ral images to which their Etymology refers us, — 
though no essential difference, yet some gradation, 
of Idea ; some new feature of the one great spi- 
ritual Fact which all express. For, " Conversion" 
is a turning back to God ; an altering the direction 
of our course ; a walking towards our heavenly 
Father instead of from Him ; and therefore ex- 
it 



130 THE NATURE OF 

presses the manifest alteration of the conduct, such 
as when men " turned from Idols to serve the 
living and true God ;" (1 Thess. i. 9 ;) or from 
Jewish superstition to confessing Christ ; (2 Cor. 
iii. 16.) or generally, from the open ways of Sin to 
those of holiness. (Acts xxvi. 18 — 20.) Whereas 
" Repentance" expresses something more inward 
than this. It is the internal cause of the external 
effect. It is that change of mind — of taste and 
feeling, sentiments and disposition, — out of which 
results, and from which only can result, a permanent 
and universal alteration of the outward practice. 
Just as our bodily turning from the path in which 
we may be walking is the result of a new turn or 
determination in our mind, — of having " changed 
our mind," (as the phrase is,) concerning the di- 
rection we will take ; and the new path that we 
enter on will be pursued only in proportion as that 
new determination had a settled ground for it at 
the first, and remains unshaken in the mind. 
Whence John the Baptist warns the Pharisees 
so solemnly to examine the grounds of the pur- 
pose which had brought them to his baptism, and 
to ascertain whether their professing to be con- 
verts was the fruit, not of a temporary respect 
towards him, nor of a vain expectation of a po- 
litical Messiah, (both which motives would so soon 
be disappointed and turn them away again from 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 131 

him,) but of Repentance, or a change of mind to- 
wards God. 

But this inward alteration of the mind, which is 
the cause of outward conversion, must itself also 
have a still deeper cause. And this still deeper 
cause of our Repentance, this source below the 
consciousness, of the new desires and purposes 
which flow up into the consciousness, is what 
the Scriptures more specifically term " New life," 
" New creation," and " New birth," or " Re- 
generation." New life, declaring that it is a 
change, not merely of opinion, or of tempo- 
rary whim and humour, but of the active, living 
powers, the Will of man — the spirit of the mind, 
the Soul. And New creation, and New birth, or 
Regeneration, denoting that this newly awakened 
life comes from another than ourselves, is quickened 
in us from above, is the child of the Holy Ghost, 
" the Lord and Giver of life." " Ye have puri- 
fied your souls," says Peter, "through the Spirit." 
"That only," says our Lord, "which is born of the 
Spirit, is spirit." " Which were born," says John, 
" not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 
the will of man, but of God." See how this last 
idea removes all claim to the efficient cause of Con- 
version and Repentance from things around us — 
the reasoning and persuasion of our fellow men, 
the influences of our education, nay, the very 



132 SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 

word of God itself, considered irrespectively of 
Spiritual power ; and from things within us — our 
own predisposition, or congruity, or condignity, or 
by whatever other name proud man would pilfer 
for himself some share of merit before God; — to 
the preventing grace, the free and uncaused mercy, 
the sovereign influence, of Him who is the Father 
of our spirits, and who only can beget them into 
likeness to himself. " Blessed be the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according 
to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a 
lively hope." (1 Peter i. 3.) " Behold what man- 
ner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we 
should be called the sons of God." (1 John iii. 1.) 
" After that the kindness and love of God our Sa- 
viour toward man appeared, not by works of right- 
eousness which we have done, but according to his 
mercy, he saved us, by the washing of regeneration 
and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on 
us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." 
(Titus iii. 4 — 6.) " For we are His workmanship 
created in Christ Jesus unto good works which 
God hath before ordained that we should walk in 
them." (Ephes. ii. 10.) 



133 



SECTION II. 

THE NECESSITY OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 

Since Regeneration is the awakening in the soul 
of new sentiments and dispositions, and therewith 
new purposes, towards God; it follows necessarily, 
that some personal consciousness of such a change 
must be experienced by every mind which emerges 
from its natural indifference to God into the life of 
Christian Piety. Consciousness, I mean, not of the 
deeper workings, whether quick or gradual, that 
have prepared it ; still less of imagined pangs and 
throes of the New birth in its very act ; but of 
those altered and altering sentiments and disposi- 
tions, which are the manifestations of inward revo- 
lution to ourselves and to the world ; — that consci- 
ousness which our Seventeenth Article calls " the 
feeling in ourselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, 
mortifying the works of the flesh and our earthly 
members, and drawing up our minds to high and 
heavenly things ;" and without which our Regene- 
ration in any other possible sense does but deepen 
our responsibility and guilt, and must increase our 
condemnation. 



134 THE NECESSITY OF 

There are, indeed, two senses of the term Rege- 
neration, which the Scriptures furnish us with, and 
which, therefore, are recognized by the ancient 
Fathers, by the Lutheran Reformers, and by the 
Church of England : two senses, both of which, I 
do conceive, we must most carefully maintain, — 
and maintain distinctly too, neither separating nor 
confounding them — if we would not throw away, 
upon the one hand, the privileges of the Church, 
and the essential doctrine of anterior, vicarious 
Justification by the blood and merits of our Saviour 
Jesus Christ ; nor degrade and sully, on the other 
hand, the character of the Church, and the equally 
essential doctrine of interior, personal, Sanctifica- 
tion, by the work and influences of the Holy Ghost. 
JBy another than ourselves we must be justified, — 
and this is relative Regeneration. But in ourselves 
we must be sanctified ; and this is personal Rege- 
neration. 

For the image of Regeneration is used both in 
heathen and Jewish authors, and in Scripture, in 
the first place, to denote any favourable Change of 
State; any marked transition from an outward 
condition of evil to one of good ; — as from slavery 
to liberty, and from misery to prosperity. Thus, 
(to mention only Scriptural examples,) God's deli- 
verance of his people from the bondage of Egypt, 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 135 

and his forming them into a nation consecrated to 
himself, is called his begetting them, and his creating 
them. " Of the rock that begat thee," says Moses 
to the Israelites, " thou art unmindful, and hast 
forgotten God that formed thee." (Deut. xxxii. 18.) 
And by the prophet Isaiah, God thus addresses his 
people: — "Thus saith the Lord that created thee, 
O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel : Fear 
not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee 
by thy name, thou art mine." (Isaiah xliii. 1.) And 
again, — " Bring my sons from far, and my daughters 
from the ends of the earth ; even every one that is 
called by my name ; for I have created him for my 
glory, I have formed him, yea, I have made him." 
(Isaiah xliii. 6, 7.) And the final deliverance of 
the world at large from the bondage of the Evil 
one, the taking off the curse which sin has brought 
upon it, its putting on a new face, and assuming a 
new character, is, from the same analogy, expressed 
in the same terms. " Behold," says the Lord, by 
Isaiah, " / create new heavens and a new earth, and 
the former shall not be remembered nor come into 
mind ; but be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that 
which I create, for behold I create Jerusalem a re- 
joicing and her people a joy." (Isaiah Ixv. 17, 18.) 
" In the Regeneration" says our Lord to his dis- 
ciples, referring to the same period, " when the Son 



136 THE NECESSITY OF 

of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also 
shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve 
tribes of Israel/' (Matt. xix. 28.) 

And hence the farther application of these terms 
to denote a marked and obvious change of state in 
matters of Religious faith and worship ; especially 
the passing over from idolatry to the service of the 
true God ; and the becoming thereby numbered 
among his people as partakers of his favour and 
protection. Of this we have an instance in the 
Eighty-seventh Psalm, in which the Psalmist, look- 
ing forward to the glorious things which had been 
promised concerning the city of God, exults in the 
expected influx of Proselytes from the neighbour- 
ing nations to swell the lists of her citizens, and 
cries — I will enumerate the Egyptian and the 
Babylonian among the worshippers of Jehovah ; I 
will speak of the Philistine and the Tyrian, and 
the Ethiopian, as "born" in the Holy City: for 
" of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was 
bom in her ; and the Highest himself shall establish 
her. The Lord shall count when he writeth up the 
people,* that this man was born there" — when he 

* Compare Ezekiel xiii. 9. where excommunication from the 
commonwealth of Israel is thus threatened — " Mine hand shall 
be upon the prophets that see vanity and that divine lies : they 
shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be 
written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 137 

makes up the list of his citizens he shall reckon 
among them, as having all the privileges of birth- 
right, many a Proselyte from heathen lands. Whence 
the Jewish Doctors say that Abraham when he was 
called by God, and cast off idolatry to serve him, 
became " a new creature ;" and speak of Proselytes 
as " born anew ;" " brought into the world a second 
time, and by another mother," and changed from 
" children of Satan into children of Abraham," 
entering thereby into new family relations, and 
new ties and obligations towards a new com- 
munity. 

We need not wonder, therefore, at the similar 
use of these terms by the Apostles to express the 
similar transition of the Gentile Proselyte from 
Heathenism to Christianity ; from his relation and 
connexion with a world that lay " in the wicked 
one," to new relations and connexions with the 
community of Christian worshippers. This tran- 
sition was avowed and witnessed, both before 
the world and before the church, in the public 
solemnity of Baptism, which was the symbol of 

enter into the land of Israel." And Isaiah xliv. 5. where recep- 
tion into this commonwealth is thus promised — " One shall say, 
I am the Lord's ; and another shall call himself by the name of 
Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord," 
— he shall enter his name in the roll of my people, — " and shall 
surname himself by the name of Israel." 



138 THE NECESSITY OF 

the Convert's renunciation of the old family of 
his birth, and entering as a new-born babe into 
the new family of his adoption ; of the blotting 
out his past existence and the commencing of a 
new one ; and which, therefore, is denominated by 
St. Paul " the washing of Regeneration" and is 
referred to by St. Peter as transferring its recipient 
from an old world into a new one, as completely as 
the waters of the flood transported Noah and his 
family from the wickedness and ruin of the ante- 
diluvian, to the renewed purity and the regene- 
rated hopes of the post-diluvian, state of things. 
" God," says St. Paul to Titus, (iii. 5,) " according 
to his mercy hath saved us," — hath transferred us 
out of the community of the " foolish, disobedient, 
deceived/' &c. (verse 8,) into the community of his 
saved ones ; hath incorporated us into his church, 
hath "justified" us, (as it is in verse 7,) and re- 
ceived us into his favour and protection, — " by the 
washing of Regeneration" " In the days of Noah," 
says St. Peter, (1 Peter iii. 20, 21,) " few, that is, 
eight souls were saved by water ;" — were rescued 
on the bosom of the flood from the ruin of the old 
world into the security and freshness of the new. — 
" The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth 
also now save us," — by water in like manner is our 
transition now effected from the world on which the 
curse of God is come, and which is ready to be 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 139 

burned, (2 Peter iii. 10,) into that little family of 
his delivered ones who have the promise and the 
hope of " new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness." (2 Peter iii. 13.) What 
the writing of his name to the Mosaic Covenant 
was to the Proselyte from Heathenism — what the 
washing from the defilements of his birth was to 
the new-born infant,* — what the water of the Flood 
was to the rescued family of Noah, — that is Bap- 
tism to the Christian convert; the method of tran- 
sition into a new community — a new sphere of 
being — a new world. 

Scripturally, therefore, as well as by a just ana- 
logy, does the Christian church employ this term 
Regeneration to express the relative change of 
state in those who are admitted by the ordinance 
of Baptism into the family of God, and to the pri- 
vileges which are enjoyed within its fold ; their 
transference from being " children of wrath," to 
" children of grace." Thus Justin Martyr, speak- 
ing of the mode of dealing with converts in his 
time, says, " They are then led by us to a place 
where there is water, and are regenerated after the 

* See Ezekiel xvi. 4, 5, and Mede in Poli Syn. on Titus iii. 
5. " Analogia inter ablutionem aquce et Regenerationem, posita 
est in illo more abluendi infantes recens natos, eosque a pollutio- 
nibus matricis expurgandi." And Potter's Antiquities, book iv. 
chap. xiv. 



140 THE NECESSITY OF 

same manner that we ourselves have been regene- 
rated. For they are bathed and cleansed in the 
water in the name of God the Father and Lord of 
all, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the 
Holy Ghost/' In which sense, therefore, the word 
Regeneration becomes nearly synonymous with 
Justification, or Adoption into the favour and 
family of God. As the Lutheran Reformers re- 
mark,* — " Sometimes the word Regeneration is 
used for Justification;... and then it means simply 
remission of sins, and adoption into the number of 
the children of God. In which sense it is fre- 
quently employed in the Apology for our Confes- 
sion, as for example where it is asserted, Justifica- 
tion is Regeneration. ... In like manner as the 
word to make alive" (compare Eph. ii. 1, 5,) " is 
used to signify the remission of sins." To the same 
purport our English Reformer, Wycliffe, says, " In 
Baptism, God christeneth the souls of men ; that is 
to say, washeth their souls from the uncleanness of 
all sin." And again, — " Bodily baptizing is a figure 
showing how man's soul should be baptized from 
sin. — Bodily washing of a child is not the end of 
baptizing ; but baptizing is a token of the washing 
of the soul from sin, both original and actual, by vir- 
tue taken of Christ's death." And this, therefore, is 

* Formula Concordiae. 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 141 

a prominent, though not the exclusive,* sense which 
pervades the Articles and Liturgy of the Church of 
England. As, for example, in the Twenty-seventh 
Article, where we read that " Baptism is a sign 
of Regeneration or New-birth, whereby, as by an 
instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are 
grafted into the Church ; the promises of forgiveness 
of Sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God 
by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed." 
So also in the Collect for Christmas-day we pray 
that "being regenerate and made God's children 

* Not the exclusive sense. For it is equally clear that the 
Church supposes the communication of a sanctifying as well as 
justifying benefit in Baptism. For in the twenty-seventh Article 
she adds that thereby "faith is confirmed and grace increased by 
virtue of prayer to God." And though she must be speaking 
here of adult recipients only, since she puts in the condition of 
their " receiving baptism rightly," and presupposes the existence 
of that " faith" and " grace" which she asserts to be " confirm- 
ed" and "increased" in Baptism ; yet in the Baptismal service 
she prays for infants that " God's holy Spirit maybe given to them 
that they may be born again," and that " all carnal affections 
may die in them and all things belonging to the Spirit may live 
and grow in them." The benefit, therefore, which our Church 
ascribes to Baptism is threefold, and cannot be better summed 
up than in the words of Dean Comber. 1. " It doth seal a 
Pardon to us for all former transgression, and begets us again to 
the hope of eternal life. 2. It restores us to the favour of God, 
and gives us a new relation to Him and to his people. 3. It 
heals our nature, by the Spirit hereby conveyed to us." The 
belief of this third benefit is grounded on the supposition that all 



142 THE NECESSITY OF 

by Adoption and Grace, we may daily be renewed 
by his Holy Spirit." And in the Baptismal service 
we pray " that this Infant coming to thy holy Bap- 
tism may receive remission of his sins by Spiritual 
Regeneration ;" and again — " Sanctify this water 
to the mystical washing away of sin;" and then 
afterwards give thanks to God " that this child is 
regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's 
church." 

Such then is the first sense of the term Regene- 
ration ; denoting a relative change of state from 
guilt, and condemnation, and ruin ; to pardon, ac- 
ceptance, and the hope of everlasting life ; — from 
being " without Christ, aliens from the common- 
men naturally are " born in sin and the children of wrath," with 
no capacity for good ; and it regards the Holy Ghost as gracious- 
ly implanting in the infant soul that possibility of sanctification, 
that seed of holiness, which by occasion of subsequent instruction, 
discipline, and grace, may grow up and expand into " all things 
belonging to the Spirit/' The difficulty as regards such implan- 
tation is entirely metaphysical. The practical necessity of the 
fostering and developing this seed, and the impossibility of ulti- 
mate salvation in every adult but as it is so fostered and deve- 
loped, remain untouched. And therefore any dispute upon the 
subject, while that practical necessity is recognised andpressed and 
acted on, would seem to me as idle as that between a follower of 
Locke, who denies all innate ideas, and makes experience the 
producing cause of every thought; and a Kantist, who contends 
for the origination in the soul itself of the ideas of the universal 
and the necessary, but holds, not the less, Experience to be 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 143 

wealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants 
of promise, having no hope, and without God in 
the world ;" to being " made nigh by the blood of 
Christ, and reconciled to God by his cross." — 
Christian Reader ! Recollect, I pray you, that 
this, with all its benefits, and all its attendant re- 
sponsibility, is your state. You have passed through 
this relative change. You have been transferred 
from the Court of the Gentiles into the Sanctuary 
of God. You have been dedicated in his temple 
and made holy to the Lord. The blood of the 
covenant has been sprinkled over you. The cross 
of Christ is on your brow. And the Sacramental 

indispensable as the occasion of their actual manifestation in the 
consciousness. If, indeed, we so estimate what has been done 
without our consciousness and co-operation, as to think and 
teach that little more remains to be done with our consciousness 
and co-operation ; — if we endeavour to make a regeneration of 
capacity stand substitute for a regeneration of act and deed ; — 
if we plead a previous " healing of our nature" to ward off all 
demand for the experience of the healthful workings of that 
nature in thought, and feeling, and purpose ; — if we refer to the 
buried seed, when we are asked to find and to produce the grow- 
ing fruits ; — then are we indulging in Pharisaical presumption 
— popish superstition — antinomian licentiousness ; we are run- 
ning counter to the spirit and the words, the feeling and the de- 
mands, of all the formularies of our Church, and of every holy 
man, of every school, therein ; we are outraging the eternal 
principles of reason and morality ; and we are " making the 
word of God of none effect by our traditions." 



]44 THE NECESSITY OF 

oath of your allegiance to his name is registered 
on high. You are no longer your own. You are 
pledged and devoted as a follower of Jesus, " not 
to be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ cruci- 
fied, but manfully to fight under his banner against 
Sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue 
Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto your life's 
end." O what must be your condemnation if you 
become a deserter from his camp, a renegade to the 
faith you have been dedicated to, false to the oath 
that has been pronounced upon you ! " How shall 
you escape if you neglect so great salvation !" 
" Of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, 
shall you be thought worthy if you tread under 
foot the Son of God, and count the blood of the 
Covenant wherewith you are sanctified an unholy 
thing, and do despite unto the Spirit of grace !" O 
be what you profess ! Realize what you are de- 
voted to. Enter consciously, with heart and soul, 
into your sacred relation to Almighty God. Be- 
come in fact and personally,— -in mind and disposi- 
tion, character, and conduct — a member of Christ, 
a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
heaven ! 

For, this latter is the sense — the all-important 
sense — in which Regeneration or New-birth is 
spoken of, and pressed, (in the second place,) both 
in Scripture, and by the best theological writers, as 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 145 

absolutely necessary to our present piety and ulti- 
mate salvation. Namely, as that personal change of 
heart and will, — of inward state as well as outward, 
— of character as well as name, — of experience as 
well as privilege, — which we have already described 
at large, and which, you will perceive at once, must 
necessarily, from its very nature, be a matter of 
our personal consciousness. It cannot merely take 
place upon us ; it must be wrought in us. It can- 
not be passed through passively, in the uncon- 
sciousness of infancy ; it must be walked through 
actively, with the energy of manhood. It cannot 
be suffered by us as recipients only ; it must be 
achieved by us as co-workers. No man can be 
sanctified by proxy, or franked by ecclesiastical 
privilege into heaven. In ourselves personally lies 
the disease of sin ; by ourselves personally must be 
experienced the remedy. There is no magic charm 
in Christianity, to cure its patients at a distance, or 
by the muttering of cabalistic words, or by the 
opus operatum of a sacerdotal touch. Its medicines 
must be lodged within the mind, and work upon the 
thoughts, the feelings, the desires, the will; and 
thus affect and alter the entire circulation of the 
man, the whole current of his inmost life, — if he 
would not die but live. 

Such a personal Regeneration, I re-assert, is ab- 
solutely necessary to our present Piety, and our 

L 



146 THE NECESSITY OF 

ultimate Salvation. For Piety is Friendship with 
God; but the natural relation of man is that of 
contrariety to God ; and therefore till this con- 
trariety be removed there can be no Piety. And 
Salvation is the perfecting of Friendship with God, 
into complete Re-union with him. It is the unli- 
mited enjoyment of God's presence; and there can 
be no enjoyment of God's presence but by partici- 
pation of God's character. And hence our Lord 
declares to Nicodemus, " Except a man be born 
again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Not, 
you observe, " he shall not;" but " he cannot" — 
in the nature of things it is impossible — there is a 
moral necessity for his expulsion. None of the de- 
crees of God are arbitrary and self-willed. They 
are all decisions of the purest Reason, whose neces- 
sity commends itself to our own judgment, and 
wins from us, whenever we consider the grounds 
of it, our own assent. And, therefore, they are 
unchangeable — therefore we cannot conceive them 
to be capable of giving way. Caprice may pos- 
sibly yield to entreaty. Reason is eternally the 
same. 

Consider then, I pray you, the essential contrast 
between the character of God, and the natural cha- 
racter of man, and you will yourself pronounce the 
absolute necessity of a personal change upon the 
part of man. God is spirit, man is flesh. God is 
pure and holy; man is corrupt and sinful. God is 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 147 

heavenly ; man is earthly. God is all majesty and 
glory ; man is all meanness and shame. Two be- 
ings not different only, but contrary ; not merely 
with qualities disproportionate, but those qualities 
excluding each other, and contradictory. And 
what, then, if these two are to be brought into 
friendship ? What, if man would enter into fellow- 
ship with God now, in order to enter into the king- 
dom of God hereafter ? This cannot be while that 
contrast remains. " For what fellowship hath righte- 
ousness with unrighteousness ? and what communion 
hath light with darkness ?" And what, then, must 
be done ? There must be alteration on the one 
part or the other. One of the contradictory cha- 
racters must change. One party must give way. 
But can God change ? Can He who is The Rock 
give way ? Can the Eternal deny himself? Can 
He put off that nature without which he would not 
be God ? Or can He lower himself beneath his 
nature ? Can He accommodate his perfections 
to our sinfulness ? Can he abate one atom of 
His spirituality — his purity — his consistency ? 
The very thought were blasphemy ! And what 
then must be done ? Where must the change 
take place ? In whom must the approximation 
be begun ? I put it to your common sense — I 
put it to your moral judgment — What is the de- 
mand — the necessary, unavoidable, demand — which 
the slightest consideration of the awful contrast 



148 THE NECESSITY OF 

between God and man forces home upon the 
mind ? Is it not that of Jesus to Nicodemus ? — 
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye must be born 
again" — a higher spirit must possess you — a new 
life must descend into you — you must die from sin 
and rise again unto righteousness, continually morti- 
fying all your evil and corrupt affections, and daily 
proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living. 

Such a personal Regeneration, then, we must 
have — all of us — either by the gradual dawn of 
light upon the soul stealing over its natural dark- 
ness, and disclosing new forms of truth and beauty 
to the wondering mind, almost before we are con- 
scious of its source ; — or by the conscious spring of 
the awakened spirit out of a world of vain appear- 

ces into one of reality — from the delusive images, 
and the confused purposes, and hurried efforts of 
an earthly dream, into the distinct ideas, the well- 
weighed resolutions, the pure aspirations of a hea- 
venly life, — wherein God shines out upon us as the 
central Sun of our existence, — and all other objects 
are seen in his light, — and estimated with reference 
to Him, and in subordination to his glory. " The 
doctrine of Conversion," says Dr. Paley, " we must 
preach plainly and directly to all those who, with 
the name indeed of Christians, have hitherto passed 
their lives without any internal religion whatever ; 
who have not at all thought upon the subject ; 
who, a few easy and customary forms excepted, 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 149 

(and which with them are mere forms,) cannot 
truly say of themselves that they have done one 
action, which they would not have done equally, if 
there had been no such thing as a God in the 
world ; or that they have ever sacrificed any pas- 
sion, any present enjoyment, or even any inclina- 
tion of their minds, to the restraints and prohi- 
bitions of religion ; with whom, indeed, religious 
motives have not weighed a feather in the scale 
against interest or pleasure. To these it is utterly 
necessary that we preach conversion. At this day 
we have not Jews and Gentiles to preach to ; but 
these persons are really in as unconverted a state 
as any Jew or Gentile could be in our Saviour's 
time. They are no more Christians, as to any ac- 
tual benefit of Christianity to their souls, than the 
most hardened Jew or the most profligate Gentile 
was in the age of the Gospel. As to any difference 
at all in the two cases, the difference is all against 
them. These must be converted before they can be 
saved. The course of their thoughts must be 
changed, the very principles upon which they act 
must be changed. Considerations, which never, or 
which hardly ever, entered into their minds, must 
deeply and perpetually engage them. Views and 
motives, which did not influence them at all, either 
as checks from doing evil, or as inducements to do 
good, must become the views and motives which 
they regularly consult, and by which they are 



150 THE NECESSITY OF 

guided : that is to say, there must be a revolution 
of principle : the visible conduct will follow the 
change ; but there must be a revolution within." 

And this " revolution within" is, therefore, con- 
tinually urged and described by our best Divines 
— and that too in the very terms, " Regeneration," 
and " New birth," — as absolutely necessary to the 
formation of a Christian man. " It is the Holy 
Ghost," says our Homily for Whitsunday, " and 
no other thing, that doth quicken the minds of men, 
stirring up good and godly motions in their hearts, 
which are agreeable to the will and commandment 
of God; such as otherwise of their own crooked and 
perverse nature they should never have. That 
which is born of the Spirit is spirit. As who should 
say, man of his own nature is fleshly and carnal, 
corrupt and naught, sinful and disobedient to God, 
without any spark of goodness in him, without 
any virtuous or godly motion, only given to evil 
thoughts and wicked deeds. As for the works of 
the Spirit, the fruits of faith, charitable and godly 
motions, if he have any at all in him, they proceed 
only of the Holy Ghost, who is the only worker of 
our sanctification, and maketh us new men in Christ 
Jesus." " Such is the power of the Holy Ghost to 
regenerate men, and, as it were, to bring them forth 
anew, so that they shall be nothing like the men 
they were before." " If Nicodemus had known the 
great power of the Holy Ghost in this behalf, that 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 151 

it is he which inwardly worketh the regeneration 
and new birth of mankind, he would never have 
marvelled at Christ's words, but would rather take 
occasion thereby to praise and glorify God." 

" Regeneration," says the accurate Barrow, " is 
a spiritual change, effected by the influence of the 
Holy Spirit on the mind, the will, and the affections 
of an adult sinner!' And these operations " do 
constitute and accomplish that work which is styled 
the Regeneration, renovation, vivification, new crea- 
tion, resurrection, of man ; the faculties of our souls 
being so improved that we become, as it were, 
other men thereby ; able and apt to do that for 
which before we were altogether indisposed and 
unfit." 

" When a man," says Bishop Beveridge, " be- 
lieves in Christ the second Adam, and so is made a 
member of his body, he is quickened and animated 
b}' his Spirit, which being the principle of a new 
life in him, he thereby becomes a new creature, 
another kind of creature from what he was before, 
and therefore is properly said to be bom again. His 
whole nature is changed. He hath a new set of 
thoughts and affections, a new sight and sense of 
God, a new bias upon his mind, so that he is now 
as much inclined to virtue as he was before to 
vice, and of a foolish, proud, sinful, and carnal crea- 
ture, is become wise and humble, and holy and spi- 
ritual." 



152 THE NECESSITY OF 

" As," says Bishop Taylor, " in the superinducing 
our evil nature we were thrust forward by the world 
and the devil, bj^ all objects from without and weak- 
ness from within ; so in the curing it we are to be 
helped by God and his Holy Spirit. We must have 
a new nature put into us, which must be the prin- 
ciple of new counsels and better purposes, of holy 
actions and great devotion ; and this nature is de- 
rived from God, and is a grace and a favour of hea- 
ven. The same Spirit that caused the Holy Jesus 
to be born after a new and strange manner, must 
also descend upon us, and cause us to be born 
again, and to begin a new life upon the stock of a 
new nature. ' From him,' said Origen, * it first be- 
gan that a divine and human nature were weaved 
together, that the human nature by communication 
with the celestial may also become divine ; not only 
in Jesus, but in all that first believe in him and then 
obey him, living such a life as Jesus taught.' And 
this is the sum total of the whole design ; as we 
have lived to the flesh, so we must hereafter live to 
the Spirit : as our nature hath been flesh, not only 
in its original, but in habits and affection, so our 
nature must be spirit in habit and choice, in design 
and effectual prosecutions : for nothing can cure 
our old death but this new birth; and this is the re- 
covery of our nature, and the restitution of our 
hopes, and therefore the greatest joy of mankind. 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 153 

It is a fine thing to see the light of the sun, and it 
is pleasant to see the storm allayed and turned into 
a smooth sea ; our eyes are pleased to see the earth 
begin to live, and to produce her little issues with 
parti-coloured coats; and nothing is so beauteous 
as to see a new birth in a childless family ; — but all 
this is nothing to the excellences of a new birth ; — 
to see the old man carried forth to funeral with the 
solemn tears of repentance, and buried in the grave 
of Jesus, and in his place a new creation to arise, a 
new heart, and a new understanding, and new affec- 
tions, and excellent appetites :—for nothing less than 
this can cure all the old distempers" 

And this, then, must become the personal experi- 
ence of each of us who are considering the moment- 
ous subject of this chapter. The evil of our charac- 
ters is personal. The process of their transforma- 
tion into good must be equally personal. Our In- 
difference to God is personal ; therefore so must be 
our Awakening to attend to him. Our Ignorance 
of God is personal ; therefore, so must be our Illu- 
mination to know him. And our natural Aliena- 
tion from God, yea Aversion to the thought of 
Him, is, alas ! most personal ; and, therefore, so 
must be our drawing towards him, our seek- 
ing Him, our finding Him, our falling down be- 
fore Him, our reconciliation to Him ; — that 
is, our Regeneration, We must enter into an 



154 



THE NECESSITY OF 



entirely new relation of our consciousness towards 
God, so that He whom we have dreaded because 
of his tremendousness, and shrunk from because of 
his purity, ay, and disliked the very mention of his 
name, because of a conscious contrariety to his will 
— even He,— the same — the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord 
God of Hosts, that changeth not — is fled to by us 
as a Saviour, trusted in as a Friend, loved and clung 
to as a Father, — as our Father reconciled to us in 
Christ. As the feelings of the prodigal towards his 
parent when he gathered all his goods together and 
took his journey into a far country to avoid his pre- 
sence, — to the feelings of the same prodigal towards 
the same parent, when he came to himself and said, 
I will arise and go unto my Father, and when he 
felt that Father's arms around his neck, and receiv- 
ed and returned that Father's kiss of perfect recon- 
ciliation, and heard that Father say, Make merry 
and be glad, for this my Son was dead and is alive 
again, was lost and is found; — such is the natural 
consciousness of the human will, to that of its Re- 
generation ; such is the transition from death to life, 
from the old man to the new, which is denominated 
by the Scriptures, being " born again." 

Turn only to that passage of St. Peter, from which 
we have already derived the Scripture notion of 
Regeneration, and observe how all its words and 
phrases equally declare that this Regeneration was 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 155 

a matter of personal experience in those to whom the 
Apostle writes. Hearing, thinking, judging, em- 
bracing truth, are surely personal acts, — acts of 
mind, which no man can do for us, and which cannot 
takeplace within us independent of our consciousness. 
And of these acts of mind St. Peter speaks when he 
reminds the converts that they had been te born 
again by the word of God, which word by the Gospel 
had been preached to them," and that they had 
" obeyed the truth," — submitted their judgment and 
convictions to its influence. Feeling (again) is 
surely a personal act — an act of the heart, which, 
from its very nature, we cannot but be conscious of, 
— which we possess only so far as we are conscious 
of it. And of such acts of heart St. Peter speaks, 
when he declares that they " by Christ had believed 
in God," — had reposed their trust and confidence in 
him as their Father, — and had " put their faith and 
hope in God :" — and had " tasted that the Lord is 
gracious," — had found the truth of God's forgiving 
love as grateful to their spiritual sensibility as the 
purest milk is to the bodily palate of the new-born 
babe. Desire, (once more,) resolve, endeavour, are 
surely personal acts — acts of will; the very expe- 
riences which constitute us persons at all, in contra- 
distinction to things, moving from an impulse within 
ourselves, instead of being moved, like the wind- 
tossed leaf, or the floating weed, by impulses with- 



156 



NECESSITY OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 



out us. And of these acts of will St. Peter speaks 
when he exhorts them, " Therefore laying aside all 
malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies and envies, 
and all evil-speakings, desire the sincere milk of the 
word, that ye may grow thereby." So evident, in- 
deed, is all this, and so impossible is it to conceive 
a human being going through all these changes of 
the character without reflection, and emotion, and 
determination, — by any other way than that of per- 
sonal consciousness and interest and effort, — that 
the drawing out the proof of this might well seem 
superfluous, if not absurd, were it not that no words 
can ever be too many, no efforts too assiduous, no 
reasoning too minute, when we are endeavouring 
to banish and drive away that fatal delusion, that 
worst form of Enthusiasm, (though it claims the 
merit of horror at Enthusiasm,) which dotes upon 
the fancy that men may be sanctified without know- 
ing it, and saved without the trouble of it, and be 
literally carried, like a passive infant, by the angels 
into Abraham's bosom ; — that, dozing listlessly for 
all their life in one state, and that a state of irreli- 
gion, — they may nevertheless wake at last with glad 
surprise in another state, and that the state of glory 
— swept from destruction in a dream, and smuggled 
into heaven ! May God deliver us from such An- 
tinomian slumber, and startle us into new and Spi- 
ritual life ! 



157 



SECTION III. 

THE MEANS OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 

Spiritual Regeneration is the dev elopement of 
love towards God. And the grand means of this 
developement is therefore that Exhibition of God's 
love towards us, which is vouchsafed in the Gospel of 
Christ For it is love that begets love. Love can- 
not exist alone. It must be reciprocal. And, 
therefore, our affection towards God must vary as 
our consciousness of the affection of God towards 
us. And this affection of God towards us is just 
the one great truth which is proclaimed to us in 
Christ. It is by manifesting this that Christianity 
obtains a power over the hearts of men, which no 
philosophy, no persuasion, no religion even, in its 
lower truths, can gain. And it is by commending 
this to the individual mind that the Spirit of Christ 
— which is emphatically " the Spirit of the Truth" 
of this particular fundamental truth of God's saving 
love, — becomes the Spirit of life, and new-creates 
the soul. And this, therefore,, is what St. Peter re- 
fers to, as the means and instrument of Regenera- 
tion, in the passage we have already considered, 



158 THE MEANS OE 

when he reminds his converts that they had been 
born again, " not of corruptible seed, but of in- 
corruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and 
abideth for ever." And St. James, also, in a very 
similar passage, (i. 18 — 27.) in which, having first 
laid down the general proposition that nothing but 
good can come from God, he adds, as the most con- 
vincing proof of his beneficence, " of his own will 
begat he us, with the word of truth, that we should 
be a kind of first fruits of his creatures." 

For, by referring to the context of the passage in 
St. Peter, we see at once what was in the mind of 
the Apostle when he used the phrase iC the word of 
God." In the twenty-fifth verse he expressly ex- 
plains his meaning : " This is the ivord" — this is 
what I am specially referring to by that term — 
" which by the Gospel is preached unto you." And 
when, in verse twenty-two, he says, " ye have puri- 
fied your souls in obeying the truth" you will find 
from the preceding verses that " the truth" which 
he has in view is that of Christ's " redemption of 
them by his precious blood" — of his " manifestation 
in these last times for them" — of his death, and re- 
surrection, and glory, accomplished for them, " that 
their faith and hope might be in God." Which truth 
he again distinguishes in chapter ii. 3. by saying, 
" ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious;" — that 
is, have believed and felt that God is forgiving and 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 159 

affectionate towards you, so that coming unto him 
whom he has chosen and made precious, you are 
made " a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sa- 
crifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ;" — and 
" though in time past not a people, yet are now the 
people of God ; though ye had not obtained mercy, 
yet now have obtained mercy" 

And this specific use of the terms, " the word of 
God," " the word/' iC the truth of the Gospel," to 
express the fundamental doctrine of that Gospel, 
that " God was in Christ reconciling the world 
unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto 
them," is the prevailing one in Scripture. It speaks 
not, in those terms, of any particular words or writ- 
ings, — as we are too much accustomed to intend 
when we employ the phrase, as if the Spiritual life 
might be evoked by the letter of Scripture as by 
some cabalistic charm, — but of the truths which 
formed the substance of the Apostolic writings and 
addresses — the message, of which they were the 
ambassadors, the disclosures concerning Godj and 
his character, and his feelings towards us, and his 
doings for us, which were made by his beloved Son. 
It is not in words, but in " the word," — not in the 
terms, but in the ideas of Christianity, that its 
mighty power resides. When St. Paul reminds the 
Colossians (i. 5, 6.) of " the hope laid up for them in 
heaven, whereof they had heard before in the word 



160 THE MEANS OF 

of the truth of the Gospel" he immediately exchanges 
the latter phrase for an equivalent one which shows 
its definite meaning — " since the day ye heard it, 
and knew the grace of God in truth" — that is, were 
made acquainted with that unadulterated message 
from on high, that God is gracious and compassionate 
through Christ. And when he desires that " the 
peace of God should rule in their hearts and they 
should be thankful" — that they should maintain a 
grateful confidence in him as their Father, — he ex- 
horts them in order to this — as the proper nou- 
rishment of this — " to let the word of Christ dwell 
in them richly in all wisdom," (Col. iii. 15.) to get 
deeply imbued with that grand truth, in all its 
richness, which Christ has taught us, and which 
tells of Christ as our Reconciler with God. This 
truth is what St. Peter calls, in another place, " the 
word of God," (Acts xv. 7.) and St. Paul, " the 
word of God's grace," (Acts xx. 32.) and "the 
word of Salvation," (Acts xiii. 26.) and " the word 
of faith," (Romans x. 8.) and " the word of recon- 
ciliation," (2 Cor. v. 19.) and " the good word of 
God," (Hebrews vi. 5.) 

Which sense of the expression is evident, yet 
further, from the effects declared to result from the 
reception of this " word." " Ye have purified your 
souls" says the Apostle, " in obeying the truth," — 
that is, have cleansed them from the defilement of 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 161 

an evil conscience afraid of God. Which is the same 
result that is elsewhere ascribed to the reception of 
the fundamental truth of Christianity, reconciliation 
with God by the blood of Christ. " If the blood of 
bulls and of goats sanctifleth to the purifying of the 
flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ 
purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the 
living God." (Heb. ix. 13, 14.) " Let us draw near 
with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having 
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." (Heb. 
x. 22.) That which is the effect of sin is recipro- 
cally the cause of sin, — namely, the consciousness 
of disagreement, and of distance, between us and 
God. And nothing therefore will effectually do 
away with sin, but that which does away with this 
cause of sin, and brings into its place the opposite 
consciousness of reconciliation and of nearness to 
God. Against this assurance no one can hold out. 
By the very proclamation of it the sinner is made 
to pause, and think, and relent. A man may doubt, 
indeed, the love of God to him — he may hastily put 
from him an idea which aggravates his self-reproach 
— he may rudely rage against an influence which he 
feels to be unnerving his determination for evil ; — 
but he cannot look this winning truth directly in the 
face — he cannot give it time to look him in the face 
in all the fulness of its radiance, and yet hold on in 
obstinacy and rebellion. He begins to be affected 



162 THE MEANS OF 

by its secret fascination ; he feels the power of its 
spell ; he hesitates ; he turns ; his stubbornness is 
melting fast away ; and, even as the Roman general 
before his Mother's eye, " like a dull actor, he for- 
gets his part" of proud impenitence, "and he is 
out ;" — he yields ; he stoops ; he throws down the 
arms of his rebellion ; he " casts away his transgres- 
sions wherewith he has transgressed, and makes 
him a new heart and a new spirit ;" he flings from 
him his jealousies, and cavils, and murmurs, and 
fears ; and he bows himself before the throne of the 
Redeemer in entire surrender to the mighty good- 
ness of God. " The love of Christ constraineth him; 
and he judges that if one died for all, then they 
which live should not henceforth live unto them- 
selves, but unto him that died for them, and rose 
again." And therefore he becomes, in Christ, a new 
creature ; old things pass away, all things become 
new. God has reconciled him to himself by Jesus 
Christ. 

Thus, then, does " the word of God" — the glad 
tidings of reconciliation with Him by Jesus Christ 
— become the seed of our Regeneration. We are 
" born again," — not by the corruptible seed of selfish 
calculations of expediency, of bodily impulses and 
fervours, of artificially excited feelings, of philoso- 
phical argumentation, and of dexterous persuasion, 
— all which motives are but temporary and perish- 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 163 

able, touch only the understanding and passions, 
stir only the upper surface of the mind, reach not 
down to the deep under- current of the will, and 
therefore can produce but superficial, transient, in- 
complete results — " not by corruptible seed, but by 
incorruptible" — by that which has a never-dying 
vigour, which never becomes effete, — even " the 
word of God which liveth and abideth for ever." 
" Christ saith/' writes Bishop Latimer — the Martyr 
Latimer, — " ' Except a man be born again from 
above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' He 
must have Regeneration. And what is this regenera- 
tion ? It is not to be christened in water, and no- 
thing else. How is it to be expounded then ? St. 
Peter showeth, that one place of Scripture de- 
clareth another. For, saith St. Peter, l We be 
born again,' — How ? Not by a mortal seed, but by 
an immortal. What is this immortal seed ? * By 
the word of the living God,' — by the word of God 
preached and opened. Thus cometh in our New 
birth." 

Such, then, are the Nature, the Necessity, and 
the Means of Spiritual Regeneration. I cannot quit 
the subject without pressing on my Readers a few 
words of Inquiry, of Direction, and of Encourage- 
ment. 

Is not Inquiry, I would ask, — personal inquiry 



164 THE MEANS OF 

of ourselves, — pre-eminently necessary, after the 
consideration of a topic like this ? It is not one of 
doubtful theory, or curious investigation — it is one 
which concerns the very being of our piety and 
holiness. And can we then fail to turn round from 
it on ourselves, — and ask with simple earnestness, 
— Have / this indispensable new birth ? I do not 
bid you point to any given moment of Spiritual 
birth — I do not ask for the chronology of Conver- 
sion — I do not even demand that the awakening 
of a filial disposition towards God should have been, 
in every case, marked enough to form an epoch in 
the life — though Dr. Paley hesitates not to say 
concerning those " who with the name of Chris- 
tians have hitherto passed their lives without any 
internal Religion," that " no one can be saved 
without undergoing a conversion which he must 
necessarily both be sensible of at the time, and 
remember all his life afterward. It is too moment- 
ous an event ever to be forgot. A man might as 
easily forget his escape from a shipwreck." But 
this I do ask — this I earnestly beseech you honest- 
ly to ask yourselves, — Have you now, at this mo- 
ment, — whether its developement within you have 
been quick or slow, marked or unmarked — have you 
now that spirit of adoption which enables you to 
cry, Abba, Father ? Are you now at one with God ? 
Is the thought of him delightful to you ? Is his pre- 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 165 

sence welcome, — his will agreeable, and such as 
you heartily accord with — his honour dear to you 
—his interest made your own — his spirit dwelling 
in you ? If not — Where are you ? What are you ? 
What is your condition? your character? your hope? 
Where is the benefit of your Christian privilege 
and education ? What have you gained from your 
baptismal consecration ? Wherein have you real- 
ized the access to God laid open to you, nourished 
the Spirit of God vouchsafed you, fulfilled the vows 
to God which are upon you ? O there is nothing 
in all this of doubtful speculation, to entitle you to 
hold back from its consideration — nothing of mere 
conflict of opinion, to permit you to return yourself 
a party answer — the question touches your charac- 
ter, your soul, your salvation. It sets before you 
life or death, — blessing or cursing— heaven or hell 1 
Sweep from you, for the moment, every shadow of 
a difference of doctrine, and of name, and of expres- 
sion — still the practical inquiry cannot be shaken 
off ; it cleaves inseparably to your very self— it asks 
with pertinacious earnestness — What still am / — 
myself— m life, and character, and heart — before the 
eye of God ? Not, What are my opinions, or the 
opinions of other men concerning me ? — not, What 
is my standing in the church, my name, my profes- 
sion, my reputation ? But, What am / — myself — 
before that heart-searching God, with whom there 



166 THE MEANS OF 

is no respect of persons — and before whom not the 
hearers of the law are just, but the doers of the law 
— those who have the work of the law written in 
their hearts — shall be justified, in that day when 
God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ ? 
This is my Inquiry. I pause — that up to God who 
seeth in secret, may be breathed in secret, by every 
one who reads it, the answer that his conscience 
dictates to its Judge ! 

But then, I pass on to a Direction, to such as can 
with trembling hope breathe this answer in the 
affirmative : and I remind them that as their child- 
like state of mind towards God was first begotten 
in them, in like manner must it be nourished from 
day to day. It is by " the word of God," — by what 
you have heard, and meditated on, and pressed 
home to your own necessities, concerning His for- 
giving love in Christ, — that you have been awakened 
to any measure of love to Him in return ; and, there- 
fore, if you desire this love to grow — nay, to main- 
tain its life — within you, it must be nourished by 
daily feeding upon that same word — by the conti- 
nual remembrance and re-application of that same 
truth. The life of Regeneration must pass on into 
that of daily Renovation. As you have begun, you 
must go on. As you have been born, you must 
grow. And this growth will form the only perma- 
nent and satisfactory evidence of that birth. As 



SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 167 

there cannot be growth in Holiness till the seed 
of Holiness has been quickened into life ; so nei- 
ther can this seed have been quickened if there be 
not growth. And therefore St. Peter writes — 
" Seeing that ye have purified your souls by obey- 
ing the truth, — having been born again, not of cor- 
ruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of 
God which liveth and abideth for ever" — What 
then? — What is the Apostle's conclusion from 
these premises ? Is it — Therefore sit down satis- 
fied that the work of Piety is done? — Therefore, 
poin r , to the record of a past Experience as the 
earnest of salvation ? — Therefore cry < Once a 
saint, always a saint?' — Therefore answer all the 
accusations of our conscience with those memor- 
able words, ' Now I am safe, for I am sure that I 
was once in a state of grace ?' — O No ! nothing of 
all this is the conclusion of St. Peter ; but just the 
very reverse — " Therefore laying aside all malice 
and all guile, and hypocrisies and envies, and all 
evil-speakings, as new-born babes desire the sincere 
milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby V What 
if, indeed, we are born again — We are but babes 
still, and we need continual nourishment by that 
same word which was the means of our regenera- 
tion, that we may grow up into men. We have re- 
ceived but the seed of the divine life, and it de- 
mands unlimited developement. We have but tasted 



168 MEANS OF SPIRITUAL REGENERATION. 

of the graciousness of God, and we need to have it 
circulate through every vein, and strengthen and 
consolidate every power of the man. Therefore 
" grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ." 

And would you have Encouragement for this ? 
You find it in the very epithet applied by Peter to 
the seed of your regeneration. It is " incorrupti- 
ble." It does not spring up for a moment, and then 
wither away. It has in it the principle of life, and 
endless germination. It is capable of infinite deve- 
lopement. It may expand, from being the least of 
all seeds, to grow into a tree, " whose height shall 
reach to heaven, and the sight thereof to the end 
of the earth, the leaves thereof fair, and the fruit 
thereof very much." " This is the comfort of the 
saints," says Archbishop Leighton, " that though 
the life which God by his word hath breathed into 
their souls have many and strong enemies, such as 
they themselves could never hold out against, yet 
for his own glory and his promise sake, He will 
maintain that life and bring it unto perfection." 



169 



CHAPTER VI. 



SPIRITUAL PEACE. 



Christianity is no system of mere restraint. It 
is no new scheme of police regulations. It comes 
not, merely to denounce evil, and to reduce its fol- 
lowers to a negative orderliness. Its object is far 
higher than this — its benefit far more excellent. 
This had been already provided for by the Law of 
God — that Law which springs up from the very 
relations of things — is enforced by the significant 
though silent discipline of natural consequences- — 
and was proclaimed in unequivocal words and sta- 
tutes in the Mosaic covenant. And Christianity is 
no mere re-publication of this Law. It is the writ- 
ing of it on the heart. It brings something in ad- 
dition to it which changes its character and aug- 
ments its influence— a love by which it is cordially 
embraced — a Peace which renders its observance 
perfect freedom. 

For though the Gospel is primarily the glad 
tidings of everlasting life, its message relates not 
only to the future. It bestows blessings in hand — 



]70 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 

a foretaste and a pledge of those that are to come. 
It speaks of present pardon, peace, and favour. 
And therefore the spirit that it awakens is not a 
mere impatient expectation of a future inheritance, 
but is the quiet confidence of present right and 
title to that inheritance. 

This is intimated by St. Paul in his Epistle to the 
Romans, (chapter v.) when he declares that " be- 
ing justified by faith,'' having entered into that new 
relation to God as our reconciled Father which the 
regenerate mind begins to recognize, "we have 
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ ;" 
and by Him, moreover, enjoy a permanent state of 
grace, or consciousness of the divine favour ; and 
thus, " not only rejoice in hope of the glory of God," 
— "not only so, but also joy in God himself " as our 
present Friend and Father, " through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, by whom we have received the atonement." 
Which present benefit of the Gospel St. John also 
speaks of when he says, " Owe fellowship is with the 
Father and with his Son Jesus Christ ; and these 
things write we unto you that your Joy may be 
full." 

It is the privilege, then, of the converted man, 
who has been born again to the love of God, to de- 
rive from this new state of his consciousness to- 
wards his heavenly Father all the happiness which 
can result from the experience of communion, con- 



SPIRITUAL PEACE. 171 

fidence, sympathy, and co-operation with a bosom 
Friend. Delight in God's presence — Dependence 
on his care — Harmony with his will — these are the 
legitimate elements of Spiritual Peace. 

Spiritual Peace results from Delight in God's 
presence, God is everywhere. He orders all 
things after the counsel of his own will. He 
worketh all in all. But the Christian convert, 
whose mind has been opened to the sight of spi- 
ritual things, even as the eyes of Elijah's servant 
were opened to behold around him horses and 
chariots of fire, becomes continually mindful of 
this universal presence of his Father — recognizes 
his hand in all the circumstances and events of life, 
and refers up all effects to Him as their all-wise and 
all-gracious Cause. In the beauty and pomp of Na- 
ture, when it stretches out before his wondering 
gaze in boundless prospect, or towers up above his 
head to inaccessible heights — when it broods over 
the unfathomable waters, or looks down from the 
equally unfathomable sky — when it sparkles in the 
sunbeam, or glows with milder splendour in the 
starry host— in all this dread magnificence of Earth 
and Heaven, the believer can rejoice in God. To 
his eye, " the heavens declare the glory of God, 
and the firmament showeth his handy work/' To 
his mind, " the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness 
thereof; the world and all they that dwell therein." 



172 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 

And he exclaims with adoration ever fresh and new 
— fresh and new with every recurrence of the ob- 
jects that excite it — "The day is thine, the night 
also is thine ; thou hast prepared the light and the 
sun ; thou hast set all the borders of the earth ; 
thou hast made summer and winter." " O Lord, 
our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the 
earth !" 

And if in all things around him the Christian 
thus delights to recognize God, how much more in 
those which personally concern him ! God is not 
only with all things, but he blesses all things. He 
openeth his hand and filleth all things living with 
plenteousness. From him cometh down every good 
and perfect gift. This, then, the Christian recol- 
lects, — and delights in the recollection. All the 
comforts he enjoys convey to him a double blessing, 
and with an emphasis of bliss are his, for with the 
gift he enjoys the Giver also. Things which in 
themselves are good, become to him inexpressibly 
more so, as representatives of The Good One, and 
as pledges of his love. And thus, to such a state 
of mind, the earthly becomes the memorial of the 
heavenly — the evanescent, of the permanent — the 
incomplete, of the perfect— the limited, of the ab- 
solute — the manifold rills, of the one unfailing foun- 
tain — the reflected rays, of the originating Sun. 
"Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God" says 



SPIRITUAL PEACE. 173 

Moses, " for it is he that giveth thee power to get 
wealth, that he may establish his covenant which 
he sware unto thy fathers." " Thine, O Lord," says 
David, " is the greatness, and the power, and the 
glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is 
in the heaven and in the earth is thine ; thine is the 
kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above 
all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou 
reignest over all, and in thine hand is power and 
might, and in thine hand it is to make great and 
to give strength unto all. Now, therefore, O our 
God, we thank Thee and praise Thy glorious Name" 
— " for all things come of Thee, and of thine own 
have we given thee," This is the spirit which en- 
ables us truly to enjoy our various blessings — life, 
health, competence, recreations, friends ; thankful 
for the greatest without being dependent on them 
— and deriving from the least a pleasure far above 
their own. See in them God's smile ; hear in them 
God's voice ; prize them as the tokens — the current 
tokens, and no more, lest you assign to them intrin- 
sic value — of God's sterling love ! 

For then, you will be able to carry on your joy 
in God, from the blessings, even to the seeming 
evils, which he brings upon you. For if the cha- 
racter of everything depends, not on the gift it- 
self, but on the Giver and his intentions towards 
us, then may the Christian rejoice not only in the 



174 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 

open, but in the disguised gifts of God. A parent's 
love may be exercised — and often much more exer- 
cised — in a reproving frown than in an encouraging 
smile ; in the discipline that pains and subdues, than 
in the indulgence that gratifies and puffs up. And 
the gift of medicine the most nauseous may be a 
far more solid evidence of kindness to a diseased 
friend than that of all the sweets that his depraved 
appetite might crave. " Open rebuke is better than 
secret (that is, indolent and indulgent) love : for 
faithful are the wounds of a friend." And what 
child of God may not rejoice in the wounds which 
he has received from his heavenly Friend ? — may 
not regard them as the very choicest tokens of his 
love ? — may not exclaim with David, " It is good 
forme to have been afflicted?" — may not "glory 
even in tribulation, knowing that tribulation work- 
eth patience, and patience experience, and experi- 
ence hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because 
the love of God is shed abroad in his heart" — he is 
conscious, in the midst of all, that God is gracious 
to him — "by the Holy Ghost which is given to 
him !" Only let us cultivate the habit of recog- 
nizing God in all things, (and this is Piety ;) and 
then shall we assuredly joy in God in all things, 
(and this is Happiness). Bright things will become 
more bright, and dark things will be made transpa- 
rent. Even as the bursting of the sun upon a land- 



SPIRITUAL PEACE. 175 

scape, so is the lifting up the light of God's coun- 
tenance upon the soul — every object is invested 
with new form and character, and shines with hues 
from heaven. 

But Spiritual Peace results, further, from De- 
pendence on God's care. We are weak and igno- 
rant, and helpless, and therefore to a Friend we 
look, not for communion only, and the sweet inter- 
course of thoughts, and words, and gifts, but for 
advice — support — assistance. And herein consists 
the Christian's Peace, that he may look to God for 
this from day to day, That very inequality be- 
tween himself and his heavenly Father which must 
render full communion impossible, — that awful dis- 
tance between the creature and the Creator which 
makes us reverently hesitate to call the Almighty 
One our Friend — this only increases the confidence 
with which we may depend upon Him as our Guar- 
dian. And in this exercise of absolute Dependence 
on his care lies our truest peace — a peace such as 
all the dreams of Independence which the fumes of 
Sin have ever generated in the fancy of poor fallen 
man could never, in their fullest realization, pro- 
duce. For it is not dependence that is irksome — 
it is the feeling our need of dependence, but not 
knowing whom we can implicitly confide in. It is 
not want which is painful — it is the not knowing 
whence to get our wants supplied. It is not weak- 



176 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 

ness that is miserable, either in doing or in suffer- 
ing — but it is the being compelled, when weak, to 
do and to suffer unpitied, unassisted, and alone. 
What so delightful as the exercise of childlike con- 
fidence ? What so blessed as the consciousness of 
knowing one in whom that confidence may be ex- 
ercised unreservedly in every circumstance, and 
through every moment, of our lives ? Yet this is 
the privilege of the Christian — if he would but en- 
ter into it. This is that Peace which passeth un- 
derstanding which the sense of God's unfailing help 
can give. Jesus himself enjoyed it, when he said 
to his Father — " I know that thou hearest me al- 
ways." And he exhorts his followers to enjoy it, 
when he says, — " Take no thought, saying, What 
shall we eat ? or, What shall we drink ? or, Where- 
withal shall we be clothed ? For your heavenly Fa- 
ther hnoweth that ye have need of all these things." 
Paul felt it when he wrote, — " I have learned, in 
whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I 
know both how to be abased, and I know how to 
abound: everywhere and in all things I am in- 
structed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to 
abound and to suffer need. I can do all things 
through Christ which strengthened me." And 
when he could throw out those paradoxical assur- 
ances, — " We are troubled on every side, yet not 
distressed ; we are perplexed, but not in despair ; 



SPIRITUAL PEACE. 177 

persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not 
destroyed." And when he could exclaim, — " He 
said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee ; for 
my strength is perfected in weakness. Most glad- 
ly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, 
that the power of Christ may rest upon me. There- 
fore, / take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in 
necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's 
sake : for when I am weak, then am I strong." 
And Paul exhorts all Christians to enter into this 
confiding peace, when he writes to the Philippians, 
— " Be careful for nothing ; but in everything by 
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your 
requests be made known unto God. And the peace 
of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep 
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Why, 
it is our need of help from God which affords us the 
occasion of rejoicing in his care ! Had not our con- 
sciences awoke to the misery and guilt of sin, how 
could we joy in the Atonement which He has pro- 
vided for sin ? Had we not girded ourselves to the 
tremendous conflict with our inbred corruptions, 
how could we joy in that grace by whose effectual 
help they may be put to death ? Did we not feel 
that we are strangers and pilgrims upon earth, how 
could we glory in the prospect of that better coun- 
try, and that city which hath foundations, which 
God has prepared for us? In this our present 

N 



178 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 

fallen state, our deepest sense of evil is the mother 
of our highest good — on the tears of our affliction 
is painted the rainbow of our hope — and through 
the gloom that gathers over the shows of earth we 
best can see the stars of heaven. Anything that 
bends us down into dependence is a blessing — for 
in Dependence lies our Peace. 

But Spiritual Peace depends, still more, on our 
being in harmony with God's will. This is indis- 
pensable to solid Christian joy. It is only as our 
Friend that we can delight in the recollection of 
God's presence, and exercise dependence on his 
care ; and we can never rise to the conviction that 
God is entirely our Friend, so long as our consci- 
ence tells us that we are not friends, and wish not 
to be friends, with Him. All true and lasting peace 
— all sober certainty of waking bliss — depends on 
the condition of our own minds, the moral harmony 
that reigns within ourselves. It is because this 
harmony has been disturbed that man is miserable. 
And it is only in proportion as it is restored that he 
can be happy. And it is because this harmony is 
restored in the converted man — because he has re- 
ceived into his soul that Spirit of holiness which 
brings his will into accordance with the will of God, 
that he can rejoice in God as now his Father in- 
deed — not in name and relation only — not by crea- 
tion, sustentation, and daily benevolence, merely — 



SPIRITUAL PEACE. 179 

but as the Producer of a state of mind accordant 
with His own — who has begotten him again of His 
own Spirit, and created him anew in Christ Jesus 
unto good works, which He had before ordained 
that he should walk in them. It is this fellowship 
of inward will that St. John especially refers to as 
the source of Christian joy. For he tells us, " if we 
say that we have fellowship with God, and walk in 
darkness, we lie and do not the truth ; but if we 
walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have 
fellowship one with another." And again, "he that 
keepeth God's commandments dwelleth in him, and 
He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth 
in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us." And 
this, therefore, Jesus presses on his followers as the 
source of all true inward joy. " If ye keep my 
commandments, ye shall abide in my love ; even as 
I have kept my Father's commandments and abide 
in his love. And these things have I spoken unto 
you that my joy might remain in you, and that 
your joy might be full" And so felt St. Paul, — 
" Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our consci- 
ence, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not 
with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, we 
have had our conversation in the world." O it is 
indeed a peace that passeth understanding to feel, 
with all the wondering gratitude of conscious inte- 
grity, that we have taken God's will for our own, 



180 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 

and that amidst our frequent infirmities, and neg- 
lects, and treacheries, we do desire and endeavour 
to bring every thought into subjection to the obedi- 
ence of Christ ! to be conscious that we do approve 
of God's law, as holy, just, and good — admiring and 
loving it — co-operating with it — rejoicing in its par- 
tial fulfilment, in ourselves and others, now — and 
looking forward with a hopeful zeal to that predict- 
ed time when it shall be entirely fulfilled by all — 
when God's will shall be done in earth even as it is 
in heaven ! What so exhilarates the heart as the as- 
surance that we are truly at one with a bosom friend 
— that his confidence in us is not misplaced, that 
his affection towards us is returned — that there exist 
no private views and purposes in either mind — that 
we are together pursuing the same end, pleased 
with the same enjoyments, imbued with the same 
tastes, working out together the same results ? 
And what then is it to be conscious that in some 
degree this fellowship exists with the Most High 
God — with the sentiments of the Most Holy — 
the purposes of the Most Wise — the workings 
of the Most Mighty — the honour and ultimate 
triumph of the Most Glorious, the King of kings, 
and Lord of lords ! The greatest privilege and 
blessedness that can be attained by mortal man 
is told in Scripture by one word — the greatest re- 
ward that can be given to the most devoted fidelity 



SPIRITUAL PEACE. 181 

and obedience is assigned in a single syllable — and 
that is just the word and syllable which expresses 
all the peace we have been speaking of — " Abra- 
ham believed in God, and it was counted unto him 
for righteousness, and he was called the Friend of 
God." " Ye are my Friends, if ye do whatsoever I 
command you." 

Would you then, dear Reader, enjoy this friend- 
ship with God and all the Peace which it produces, 
suffer me to remind you how this privilege was 
gained for you, and how it must be realized within 
you. 

How it was gained for you. For it is written, 
" Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ ;" — and again, " We 
joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom 
we have received the atonement." This privilege, 
then, is not ours by birthright. It comes not of 
itself to us. It cannot be solicited for us, by our 
fellow men. We cannot purchase it ourselves. 
Nor does it grow up in us by spontaneous develope- 
ment. No human heart is naturally friendly with 
the High and Holy One. As well might the out- 
cast beggar aspire to friendship with the crowned 
monarch ; or the condemned felon feel familiar with 
the robed man of justice ; or the conscience-stricken 
murderer delight in the idea of him whose name he 
had put out from the earth. Nature, history, phi- 



182 SPIRITUAL PEACE. 

losophy, scripture, conscience, — all declare that 
enmity, variance, suspicion, dread, are, and must 
be, the natural emotions of a guilty spirit toward 
its offended Maker, Governor, and Judge. And 
therefore, to be friends with God we must become 
reconciled to Him. We must be made at one before 
we can feel and love as one. The past must be 
settled before the future can be enjoyed. We must 
be brought into agreement before we can walk to- 
gether. And just in order to this Reconciliation, 
this at-one-ment, this making up, this bringing 
to agreement, God sent his only Son into the 
world to be the Mediator, the Restorer, the At- 
one-Maker, (as Tyndal calls him,) the mutual inter- 
ceding Friend. " God was in Christ," says St. Paul, 
<c reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing 
their trespasses unto them; and hath committed 
unto us the word of Reconciliation. Now then, as 
Ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech 
you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye re- 
conciled to God." God has done everything on 
his part towards a reconciliation. Now do you do 
yours. God has made the first offers — has thrown 
down the existing barriers — has provided the ne- 
cessary pledges — has condescended to the most en- 
couraging assurances — has not spared his own Son, 
but has given him up for us all — has opened wide 
his fatherly arms for every returning sinner — and 



SPIRITUAL PEACE. 183 

cries to all, " Return to me, for I have redeemed 
thee !" Now then, do you return, " Take with 
you words and turn unto the Lord and say unto 
him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graci- 
ously." Lay your hand on the atonement which 
has been sacrificed for you. Transfer upon his 
head your guilt. Sprinkle on your conscience his 
blood. And draw near to God with a true heart, 
in full assurance of faith, that being justified by 
faith you may have peace with God through Jesus 
Christ your Lord. 

And thus shall you realize in your mind the pri- 
vilege which has been vouchsafed you through his 
blood. You will receive the atonement which has 
been wrought for you. You will enjoy personally 
what has been done for you vicariously. You will 
be yourself at one with God, and will joy in Him 
who is not now first by some tedious process of 
laborious penance to be made your Friend, but who 
is already so, and has shown himself to be so through 
his Son ; and by that showing has subdued and won 
your heart, and with your heart will have your di- 
ligent obedience — will he not? — from this time 
forward even to eternity ! 



184 



CHAPTER VII. 



SPIRITUAL HOPE. 



The grand promise of the Gospel is that of the 
restoration and perfecting of all things in the king- 
dom of God. And the whole work of the Gospel 
on the individual soul is the bringing it out of the 
alienation and misery of sin into the capacity for 
this glorious consummation. The Son of God has 
opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. 
And the Spirit of God disposes, trains, and fits 
them for its ultimate enjoyment. The Doctrines 
of Christianity make known this kingdom, and the 
way in which it must be sought. The Experience 
of Christianity anticipates this kingdom, and brings 
the mind to live by faith in some communion with 
it. And the Precepts of Christianity prepare for 
this kingdom, and reduce the character into con- 
formity with its governing principle, the will of 
God. 

All genuine Christian Experience, therefore, 
springs from the promise, and depends upon the 
hope, of everlasting life. The whole work of deli- 
verance from evil is begun, continued, and ended in 
hope. "We are saved," says St. Paul, "by Hope." 



SPIRITUAL HOPE. , 185 

That is — Hope forms the living principle of the 
Christian mind, begetting, and accompanying all 
its spiritual exercises. It was the hope of pardon 
through the blood of Christ, which first delivered 
us from this present evil world. It is the hope of 
victory through the Spirit of Christ, which ani- 
mates us to struggle for deliverance from the still 
remaining power of sin. And it is the hope of 
final triumph at the Second Coming of Christ, 
which enables us patiently to wait for the deliver- 
ance of all things from the bondage of corruption 
into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 
Hope, then, is the consummation of the spiritual 
life — that which sustains all other feelings, and 
breathes over them a freshness and a fragrance 
ever new. O may the God of hope fill us with all 
joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in 
Hope through the power of the Holy Ghost ! 

For Hope is the only unfailing support of the 
Christian mind in this present state of things. Great 
and manifold, it is true, are the blessings which 
God vouchsafes, even now, to them that love him. 
In the remembrance of past forbearance and com- 
passion, and in the enjoyment of present favour 
and communion, there springs up frequently in the 
bosom of the Christian a joy which no man inter- 
meddleth with ; according to the promise of our 
Saviour — He that believeth on me, from within 
himself shall flow forth constantly refreshing streams 



186 



SPIRITUAL HOPE. 



of gladness. But then, all these blessings, in the 
present state of things, are necessarily incomplete, 
variable, and disturbed. The pure river of water 
of life may proceed out of the throne of God in the 
heart, clear as crystal, but it flows into a mind still 
turbid, and therefore it unavoidably becomes altered 
and defiled. 

Our knowledge of God, for example, how limited 
is this ! He has proclaimed his character to us, 
but we are dull of hearing. He has made himself 
visible in Christ, but our eyes are heavy. When, 
indeed, we can fix our gaze on his perfections, 
when we can look forth full upon our God — his 
will, his works, his ways — with quiet contemplation, 
then do we understand somewhat of our Lord's 
assurance that this is life eternal, to know the 
only true God, through Jesus Christ whom he 
hath sent ; and we are ready to exclaim, with the 
disciples when they saw the glory of their Master, 
" It is good for us to be here !" But alas, how soon 
does a cloud overshadow us, and we awake and find 
ourselves alone I That pure intuition of Deity which 
the sages of antiquity aspired to as the summit of 
perfection ; and which Moses, the sacred sage, was 
favoured with when " God spake to him mouth to 
mouth, even apparently, and the similitude of the 
Lord did he behold;" and the full reality of which 
is the exclusive portion of the only-begotten Son, 
to whom the Father " showeth all things that him- 



SPIRITUAL HOPE. 187 

self doeth," and who therefore " knoweth the Fa- 
ther, even as the Father knoweth the Son :" — this is 
not for ordinary flesh and blood, in this world of 
sense and sensible conceptions, and by Hope alone 
can we look out for any approximation to it. But 
Hope does tell us that " the pure in heart shall see 
God," — that we shall " behold his face in righteous- 
ness," that " we shall see him as he is," — that " now, 
indeed, we see through a glass, darkly, but then 
face to face ; now we know in part, but then shall 
we know even as we are known!" 

And have we now some communion with God? 
Do we realize, at any time, his presence, and there- 
by enter somewhat into the original blessedness of 
Paradise when the Lord God walked in the garden, 
and the Divine Wisdom rejoiced in the habitable 
part of the earth, and her delights were with the 
sons of men ? Then truly do we enter into present 
peace — a peace entirely independent of — unmind- 
ful of — the world to come. The present moment is 
bliss, and we are satisfied. But then, how few and 
far between are visitations such as these — how 
many voices of the world break in upon the holy 
silence of the soul — how many earthly shapes in- 
trude themselves into the sacred circle, and break 
the charm. And where, then, is our consolation, but 
in the Hope of that predicted full communion, when 
" the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and He 
will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, 



188 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 

and God himself shall be with them and be their 
God." 

And what, still further, is our present service of 
God, but mingled effort and disappointment ? True 
it is that in that service the Christian finds his 
greatest happiness — that it is perfect freedom — 
that God's law is his delight — and that in keeping 
of his commandments there is great reward. The 
exhilaration that accompanies activity — the glow 
of successful effort — the quiet sense of inward har- 
mony — the delight of testifying our gratitude to 
God— and the thrilling consciousness of his com- 
placency towards us — all combine to shed an inex- 
pressible blessedness through the heart, and to make 
us cry with David, " Great peace have they which 
love thy law, and nothing shall offend them !" But 
then, what Christian is there who has not to mourn 
the daily interruption of this holy service ? Who 
does not confess that in many things we all offend ? 
Who does not bitterly bewail that the things that 
he would he does not, and the things that he would 
not, those he does, and there is no health in him ? 
O if our happiness were to depend exclusively on 
what we have actually acquired of holiness, — if only 
according to the precise measure of our righteous- 
ness could be the measure of our peace, — no peace 
could there be for fallen man; neither in this world, 
for he has not attained to righteousness — nor in the 
next, for never can he hope, on this condition, to 



SPIRITUAL HOPE. 189 

attain it. All hope would be smothered under the 
burden of despondency — all power for holiness 
crushed under the oppressive sense of impotency. 
To the future, therefore, we must look for all the 
happiness of holiness, that by the vigour which that 
future rouses in us we may achieve the holiness 
which is happiness. By Hope alone, can we begin to 
work. The command of the compassionate Saviour 
must itself convey the life by which we may stretch 
forth the withered arm. By Hope alone can we 
continue to work, amidst enmity and allurement 
without, and treachery within. And, blessed be 
God ! such Hope is ours through the knowledge of 
Him that hath called us to glory and virtue ! By 
him are given unto us exceeding great and precious 
promises, that by these we may become partakers of 
the divine nature. And from those promises we 
may derive a daily joy, at once consolatory under 
disappointment, and productive of success. " Bless- 
ed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness, for they shall be filled? " We, ac- 
cording to his promise, look for new heavens and a 
new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." " And 
the work of righteousness shall be peace ; and the 
effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for 
ever." 

Hope, then, is our only certain stay amidst the 
mental, spiritual, and moral imperfection of our 
present state. It is the under-current of the re- 



190 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 

newed soul, which alone runs steadily while the 
surface is continually broken into eddies, and swept 
by the vicissitudes of cloud and sunshine. And 
hence it has ever formed the preserving grace of 
God's people through every age. In the long cata- 
logue of faithful men set before us in the ele- 
venth chapter to the Hebrews, the Faith which is 
extolled as having been their animating and sus- 
taining principle is for the most part prospective — 
is the assurance of blessings whose attainment was 
yet to come — is " the substance of things hoped 
for" — in short, is Hope; — only not that Hope 
which rests on nothing more substantial than the 
airy visions of a sanguine imagination, but which is 
based and settled on the solid word of God, who 
cannot lie. It was by this Faith, which is Hope, 
that Abraham " sojourned in the land of promise 
as in a strange country ; for he looked for a city 
which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is 
God." It was by this Faith, which is Hope, that the 
patriarchs, " not having received the promises, saw 
them afar off, and embraced them, and confessed 
that they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth." 
It was by this Faith, which is Hope, that Abraham, 
" when he was tried, offered up Isaac, accounting 
that God was able to raise him up, even from the 
dead;" or, as St. Paul says in another epistle, 
" against Hope believing in Hope, and being fully 



SPIRITUAL HOPE. 



191 



persuaded that what God had promised he was 
able also to perform." And all those other men of 
God who obtained a good report through faith, did 
so " not having received the promise" because God 
had " provided some better thing for us, that they 
without us should not be made perfect." By Hope, 
therefore, were they saved, and by Hope must we. 
" Christ's house are we, if we hold fast the confidence 
and the rejoicing of the Hope firm unto the end." 
" And we desire that every one of you do show the 
same diligence unto the full assurance of Hope unto 
the end ; that ye be not slothful, but followers of 
them who through faith and patience" (compare 
Rom. viii. 25.) " inherit the promises." " By two 
immutable things, in which it was impossible for 
God to lie, we may have strong consolation which 
have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the Hope set 
before us in the Gospel ; which Hope we have as 
an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast, and which 
entereth into that within the veil, whither the 
Fore-runner, Jesus, is for us entered." " Where- 
fore, seeing we are compassed about with so great 
a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, 
and the sin " (that is, of Despondency,) " which 
doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience 
the race set before us, looking unto Jesus the 
Author and finisher of our faith ; who, for the joy 
that was set before him, endured the cross, despising 



192 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 

the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the 
throne of God. For consider him who endured 
such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye 
be wearied and faint in your minds !" 

And this Hope, remember, is no vain-glorious 
self-confidence ; for the essence of it is dependence 
on the promises, and the continual help, of another 
than ourselves. It is no idle and unholy presump- 
tion, for it is limited and conditioned by the princi- 
ples that we are holding fast, the dispositions we 
are cherishing, the path of conscientious obedience 
in which we are walking. It is a meek and quiet 
confidence in the faithfulness of God to those who 
love him, and an unpretending reliance on those as- 
surances of Christ, — " My sheep hear my voice, 
and I know them, and they follow me, and I give 
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, 
neither shall any pluck them out of my hand ; — yea, 
my Father which gave them unto me is greater 
than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of 
my Father's hand." Where the very form of the 
encouragement secures it from misapplication, and 
the very words that animate, must at the same 
time sanctify. The Christian's Hope is the hope of 
" Christ's sheep." — not of the self-willed, the proud, 
and the presumptuous. It is the hope of those 
who " hear his voice," — not who listen to the syren 
song of Sin. It is the hope of those who " follow 
him," — not who follow the devices and desires of 



SPIRITUAL HOPE. 193 

their own hearts. It is the hope, that " when he 
shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him 
as he is," and therefore, " every one that hath this 
Hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" 

But to enjoy this Hope, in its full assurance, and 
to derive from it all the life and power which it can 
convey, we must recollect whence it springs, and 
how it is to be preserved from day to day. 

It springs from dependence on the work that Christ 
has wrought for us on the cross. For it is only as we 
believe in God, that we can hope in God ; only as 
we trust to his assurances of forgiveness for the 
past, that we can embrace his promises of safety 
for the future. " Being justified by his grace, we 
are made heirs, through Hope, of eternal life." 
We must enter into our relation with God as dear 
children before we can look forward, with any feel- 
ing that deserves the name of Hope, to the inherit- 
ance of his children. The careless, worldly-mind- 
ed, unconverted man is without hope, because he 
is virtually without God ; and a stranger from the 
covenants of promise, because in spirit an alien 
from the commonwealth of Israel. We have only 
to look round upon the general feeling of mankind 
in the thought of death and of another world, — 
the shrinking dread which betrays the utter empti- 
ness of their expectations of eternity, — the clinging 
to this life, which shows that here only do they feel 
they have a solid footing and can grasp reality and 



194 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 

substance; — we have only to remark the almost 
universal substitution of the cold term " Resigna- 
tion," — a term of which Scripture actually knows 
nothing, — for the animated Christian term, and 
the joyful Christian idea, of Hope — " lively Hope," 

— " blessed Hope," — " Hope that maketh not 
ashamed;" — in order to convince ourselves that 
only from the spiritual Experience of the Gospel 
can spring the spiritual Hope of the Gospel. If 
we would have " everlasting consolation and good 
hope," it is " through grace" that we must have it 

— through the animating confidence that " our 
Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Fa- 
ther hath loved us and chosen us unto salvation, 
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the 
truth." And therefore, St. Paul represents the hope 
of future glory as springing from the faith in past 
forgiveness, and sustained through every trial by 
the consciousness of present friendship. "Being 
justified by faith we have peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ," — there is past forgiveness ! 
— " by whom also we have access by faith into this 
grace wherein we stand," — there is present friend- 
ship ! — " and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" — 
there is future Assurance ! Which hope, the Apos- 
tle declares yet further, is not shaken by tribulation, 
does not make us hold down our heads with shame 
and disappointment, " because the love of God is 
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which 



SPIRITUAL HOPE. 195 

is given unto us," — because the declarations of 
God's pardoning mercy pervade and fill the honest- 
hearted Christian, and produce that buoyant con- 
sciousness of safety which exclaims in each succes- 
sive trial, " If God be for us, who can be against 
us ? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered 
him up for us all, how shall he not with him also 
freely give us all things ?" " Who shall separate us 
from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or dis- 
tress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, 
or sword ? Nay, in all these things we are more than 
conquerors, through him that loved us. For I am 
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love 
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord !" 

But remember equally, how this Hope must be 
preserved from day to day. It must be preserved 
by preservation of the heart from sin, and of the 
conscience from defilement. Its life depends upon 
the death of its antagonist principle. And this an- 
tagonist principle is invigorated by every successive 
fall from moral excellence, nay, flourishes of itself 
when there is merely negligence, and want of growth 
in moral excellence. The Hope we speak of is the 
hope of holiness, and therefore it cannot be otherwise 
than a holy Hope, and with Holiness only can it 
dwell. " The hope of the righteous shall be gladness, 



196 SPIRITUAL HOPE. 

but the expectation of the wicked shall perish." 
" Can the rush grow up without mire ? Can the flag 
grow without water ? Whilst it is yet in its green- 
ness and not cut down, it withereth before any other 
herb. So are the paths of all that forget God, and 
the hypocrite's hope shall perish ; whose hope shall 
be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web." 
O forget not that it is the Holy Ghost whose power 
makes the Christian's hope abound, and that the 
Holy Ghost can never dwell in an unholy heart. 
It is " through the Spirit that we wait for the hope 
of righteousness by faith," and this Spirit lusteth 
against the flesh and produceth all the fruits of 
righteousness. It is " the Holy Spirit of God where- 
by we are sealed unto the day of redemption," and 
this Spirit is soon grieved by " bitterness and wrath, 
and clamour, and evil speaking," — by every evil 
thought, and temper, and desire. O then for care- 
ful, jealous cherishing of his gentle inspirations ! 
O for daily nourishment of all those dispositions, in 
the midst of which, as in the temple of his holiness, 
he loves to dwell ! The assurance of our hope must 
vary as the experience of our sanctification. And 
it is only as we can say, with all the conscious inte- 
grity of St. Paul, " I have fought a good fight, I 
have finished my course, I have kept the faith," 
that we can also say, with all the full assurance of 
St. Paul, " Henceforth there is laid up for me a 
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righte- 
ous judge, shall give me at that day I" 



PART III. 



THE NOURISHMENT 

OF 

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



The counsels of Religion are not to be applied to the distem- 
pers of the soul as men used to take hellebore, but they must 
dwell together with the Spirit of a man, and be twisted about his 
understanding for ever ; they must be used like nourishment — 
that is, by a daily care and meditation — not like a single medi- 
cine and in the actual pressure of a present necessity. 

Bishop J. Taylor. 

What then remains 1 — To seek 
Those helps, for his occasions ever near, 
Who lacks not will to use them ; vows, renewed 
On the first motion of a holy thought ; 
Vigils of contemplation ; praise ; and prayer, 
A stream, which, from the fountain of the heart, 
Issuing, however feebly, nowhere flows 
Without access of unexpected strength. 

Wordsworth. 



Qu'est-ce done qu'un homme qui, reconnoissant l'Etre Su- 
preme, ne le prie pas 1 C'est un infortune qui n'a point de 
Dieu ; qui vit tout seul dans Punivers ; qui ne tient a aucun 
etre hors de lui ; qui, retombant sur son propre cceur, n'y trouve 
que lui-meme, c'est a dire, ses peines, ses degouts, ses inquie- 
tudes, ses terreurs, avec quoi il puisse s'entretenir. C'est un infor- 
tune. .. .qui vit dans l'univers comme un homme que l'hasard 
avoit jete tout seul dans une ile reculee et inaccessible, ou ilse- 
roit sans maitre, sans souverain, sans soin, sans discipline, sans 
attendre de ressource, sans se promettre une meilleure destinee, 
sans porter ses vceux et ses souhaits au-dela du vaste abime qui 
l'environnerait, et sans chercher d'autre adoucissement a, l'infor- 
tune de sa condition qu'une molle indolence. 

Massillon. 



PART III. 

THE NOURISHMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE NECESSITY OF DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 

We have seen that the Essence of the Spiritual 
life of Christianity lies in the filial disposition of the 
heart towards God, and that although the Source 
of this life is necessarily hidden in the inscrutable 
depths of the soul, its Developement will take 
place according to the usual laws and workings of 
the human mind. This developement may be neg- 
lected, may be hindered, may be limited — or it may 
be sought, assisted, fostered into full expansion. 
It may be quick or slow. It may be vigorous or 
feeble. But without some experience of it we have 
failed to gain that personal benefit from the truths 
of Christianity which they are intended to convey, 
and to make its blessings and its hopes our own. 

But this benefit, even when gained, must be 
diligently cherished, if we would retain possession 
of it, still more if we would reach the full enjoyment 
of its sweetness and power. The stream of holy 



200 THE NECESSITY OF 

thought must be continually fed from its original 
fountains, and by tributary rills, or it will dry up and 
perish. The presence and influence of the Spirit 
of God are vouchsafed after a moral manner, — that 
is, not mechanically or supernaturally, but according 
to the laws of mind, and heart, and will ; and there- 
fore they must be maintained and increased by 
moral means — that is, by all those exercises of the 
mind, and heart, and will, which are comprehended 
under the term Devotion, in its widest sense. 
Whatever tends to deepen and make vivid the 
Sense of God — to strengthen and extend holy 
thoughts, affections, and determinations — forms the 
proper and the indispensable nourishment of the 
Spiritual Life. O what a wide and fruitful field of 
meditation is here opened to us ! God grant that 
we may expatiate therein with solemn step I God 
enable us to treat of Prayer in the spirit of prayer ! 
— to meditate devoutly on devotion ! 

Our first endeavour will be to show the Necessity 
of Devotional exercises, as the natural Effusion of 
the spirit of adoption, and as the indispensable 
Means of its nourishment and growth. 

As the natural Effusion of the spirit of Adop- 
tion, the Christian cannot do without Prayer. For 
this spirit is an effluence from the Spirit of God'. It 
comes down from him ; and to him, therefore, it 



DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 201 

cannot but again ascend. Rather, — It is not sepa- 
rated from Him ; and in Him, therefore, it cannot 
but dwell. The breath of natural life, though issuing 
from the mysterious fountain of Being and diffused 
throughout the world, is not, and cannot be, sepa- 
rated therefrom ; and therefore the Apostle says, 
of every creature, that " in God we live, and move, 
and have our being." Life is no possession of our 
own, made over to us, but it depends from hour to 
hour on the unceasing inspiration of the breath of 
God. " In his hand is the soul of every living 
thing and the breath of all mankind." "Thou 
sendest forth thy spirit and they are created ; thou 
takest away their breath and they die." And just 
so is it with the Spiritual, even as with the natural, 
life. Not only from God does it proceed, but in 
God it must live. It is a union of the soul to God, 
and therewith a communion with God. Intercourse 
is essential to its nature. The individual breath 
commingles with the universal. And therefore 
does St. John declare " we have fellowship with 
the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." And 
he who has the Spirit of God is said to dwell in 
God, and God in him. There is affinity with God 
begotten in the soul ; and where there is affinity, 
there must be attraction and blending into one. 
" Prayer," says Bishop Taylor, " what is it but an 
ascent of the mind towards God ?" 



202 THE NECESSITY OF 

Besides, this spirit of adoption is the spirit of a 
Son — a child — a loving child towards his affec- 
tionate parent ; and we know what are the effu- 
sions of such a child towards him whom he loves. 
How his heart goes forth towards him. How he de- 
lights to seize, and to make, opportunities of coming 
into his presence — of watching his eye, of catching 
his smile, of communicating to him his thoughts, 
and of listening to his words. How he turns to 
him in every need, depending upon his encourage- 
ment and help. How he refers to him his plans 
and wishes, that he may obtain his approbation of 
them, or get them modified by his suggestions. 
And all these exercises of the filial mind are just 
the chief component parts of Prayer. For Prayer is 
the effusion of Delight in God's presence, Depend- 
ence on God's help, and Deference to God's will. 

And therefore do we see this spirit breathing 
forth so naturally from our blessed Lord, who was 
emphatically The Son of God, and was therefore 
filled with the spirit of a Son. In how many in- 
stances do we find him, not formally addressing 
himself to Prayer, but his thoughts taking in their 
very birth the form of Prayer, rising up as such 
within the mind by their natural tendency towards 
God. Supplication, thanksgiving, general com- 
mendation of himself into his Father's hands— 
escape from him, as it were, by their native buoy- 



DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 203 

ancy and expansiveness. Supplication, for exam- 
ple, when about to heal the deaf and dumb man — 
" He took him aside from the multitude, and put 
his fingers in his ears and touched his tongue, and 
looking up to heaven he sighed, and saith unto him 
Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." Thanksgiving, 
again, when he had come to the grave of Lazarus 
to raise his friend — He sees by faith, the work 
already accomplished — his adoration cannot wait — 
it breathes itself out before the fact — " Jesus lifted 
up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou 
hast heard me !" And this natural Thanksgiving 
he exhibits in the slightest and the most habitual 
occurrences of life, so that, as St. Luke informs us, 
the disciples going to Emmaus recognized their 
Master, after his resurrection, by his devoutness. 
" It came to pass as he sat at meat with them he 
took bread and blessed it" — that is, blessed God for 
it — " and brake and gave to them, and their eyes were 
opened and they knew him." It was customary, in- 
deed, for the master of a family to begin each meal 
with an ascription of praise to God as the Provider 
of it ; but that this stranger should thus act for them 
as the head of their little party, and breathe forth 
the very thanksgiving which they had been accus- 
tomed to from their Master — it must be He himself! 
Even as gait, and manner, and various little habits, 
betray a man, so was Jesus recognized by his De- 



204 THE NECESSITY OF 

voutness. And then observe his general Depend- 
ence upon God, and commendation of himself into 
his hands. When the soldiers came with swords 
and staves to take him, the Disciples think imme- 
diately of dependence on an arm of flesh, and seize 
the sword to defend their master. But Jesus thinks 
only of God. " Put up thy sword into its place. 
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, 
and he shall presently give me more than twelve 
legions of angels ?" And when the awful moment 
of dissolution came, and he must dismiss his spirit, 
that spirit he breathed forth in prayer to God — 
" Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit !" 

Nor were the followers of Jesus destitute of 
these effusions of Devoutness. You recollect how, 
when the Apostles had reported to their friends all 
that the chief priests and elders had said to them, 
" when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to 
God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, 
which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, 
and all that in them is." And how, in the prison 
at Philippi, " at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed 
and sang praises unto God." And how the con- 
verts, on the day of Pentecost, " continued daily 
with one accord in the temple, eating their meat 
with gladness and singleness of heart, and praising 
God." Here are instances of those spontaneous 
aspirations which are the natural breathings of the 



DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 205 

renewed mind. We speak not now of acts of 
prayer, times of prayer, places of prayer, but of 
the spirit of prayer, as the necessary effusion of the 
spirit of adoption, — of that bent and bias of the 
Spiritual nature which displays itself at every op- 
portunity afforded it, and in which lies the evidence 
of our possession of that nature. For true piety is 
a spontaneous principle. Even amidst all our re- 
maining evil, dulness, hinderances, and imperfections, 
true piety is a spontaneous principle, — the welling 
forth of an interior life. The spring may be but 
imperfectly opened up ; the stream may flow but 
languidly; its course may be obstructed by innu- 
merable obstacles ; and it may often seem to lose 
itself amidst the sands of earth — but still a spring 
there must be, and that spring of living water. 
" Religion," says the pious Scougal,* " is an in- 
ward, free, self-moving principle, — and the love 
which a pious man bears to God and goodness is 
not so much by virtue of a command enjoining him 
so to do, as by a new nature instructing and prompt- 
ing him to it; nor doth he pay his devotions as an 
unavoidable tribute, only to appease the divine jus- 
tice, or quiet his clamorous conscience ; but those 
religious exercises are the proper emanations of the 

* In his " Life of God in the Soul of Man ;" one of the most 
valuable tracts on the list of the Christian Knowledge Society. 



206 THE NECESSITY OF 

divine life, the natural employments of the new-born 
soul." 

But the Necessity of devotional exercises will be 
still more apparent if we consider them, further, as 
the indispensable Means by which the spirit of adop- 
tion must be nourished and invigorated. For, this 
spirit, being not of native growth within us, — nay, 
being every moment opposed and checked by that 
which is of native growth, (Gal. v. 17. Article IX.) 
— cannot be sustained, and still less, developed into 
full expansion, but by continued inspirations from 
its heavenly Source. " Grant to us," we pray in 
our collect for the fifth Sunday after Easter, " that 
by thy holy inspiration we may think those things 
that be good." And again in our Communion ser- 
vice, " Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the 
inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly 
love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name." 
But these inspirations are communicated, not by 
unaccountable illapse or by sensible impulse, but 
through the ordinary exercises of devotion, and by 
the excitement or revival of spiritual thoughts. By 
the ideas of God and his relation to us in Christ 
was this spirit first awakened in us, and by the re- 
production and expansion of these ideas it must be 
fed. But to the re-production of any one idea, — 
still more to the making it familiar to us, so that it 
shall connect itself with all our trains of thought, 
and, rising up with them into the consciousness, 



DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 207 

affect and modify their character by its presence, — 
there is required a frequent re-presentation of the 
object that it images, till, by the steady contempla- 
tion of that object in its various relations, it take 
place and permanence among our inward realities. 
It is the actual presence of sensible objects, con- 
stantly repeated, that makes them so familiar to us. 
It is the frequent presence of a friend which has 
obtained for his idea such a place in our hearts, and 
an influence on our thoughts. And with objects not 
sensible, with friends at a distance, this presence can 
be realized only by the re-production of their image 
in our consciousness, and by the holding of that 
image there sufficiently long to find it filling the 
mind's eye, and placing full and vividly before our 
view the being that it represents. And hence then 
the need of prayer to make present to us God — of 
that meditative recollection of his character and 
will, which withdraws the attention from all other 
objects either of outward sense, or of inward imagi- 
nation, and fixes it upon the portrait of our Father 
as he is exhibited in Christ, till we seem to know 
him for our own, to see him smile upon us, to ex- 
pect him almost to speak to us in words of fatherly 
affection ! Christian ! if you would have something 
more than dim and shadowy conceptions of God — 
if you would do more than hear of him by the hear- 
ing of the ear — if your eyes would see him — you 
must be diligent in all the means of grace. 



208 



THE NECESSITY OF 



But the spirit of adoption is something more than 
vivid conceptions of God — it is a new disposition to- 
wards him. And to the formation of a disposition 
of mind there is required the frequent revival of the 
feelings of which it is composed, and their habitual 
exercise. It is the constant exercise, from earliest 
childhood, of the filial feelings, which renders them 
so strong, so regular, so apparently instinctive ; and 
the most affectionate child will lose something of 
the freshness and the force of those feelings, if he 
be long separated from the presence and from the 
memorials of his parent. And just similarly is it 
with the filial feelings of the Christian towards his 
heavenly Father. It was long perhaps before they 
were awakened — their repetition is but fitful and 
irregular — their settling into habit and disposition 
is checked by many things without us, and more 
within — and nothing therefore but exercise, steady 
and deliberate exercise, can preserve them, much 
less strengthen and consolidate them. And this 
exercise is to be sought in Devotion — in specific 
acts, at stated times, and with sustained attention. 
For it is only by repeated acts that any general 
habits (of mind as well as of body) can be either 
formed or maintained. If our affections towards 
God are weak and dull, it is by prayer that we must 
quicken and invigorate them — prayer which brings 
before our mind memorials of God's love to us, — 



DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 209 

all that is winning, and awakening, and soul-subdu- 
ing, in his character and in his dealings with us, — 
and, as by a live-coal from the altar, kindles our af- 
fections into flame. Its influence is like the turn- 
ing up some touching token of a departed friend. 
It stirs the heart as the single look of Jesus did the 
heart of Peter, and unlocks the smothered spring of 
life-restoring tears. 

Again. The life of the spirit is a life of faith — 
opposed to the life of sense and struggling against 
it. It is oppressed and enfeebled every moment by 
the rush of millions of unfriendly, though necessary, 
thoughts of earth. Twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours 
of each successive day it suffers violence from the 
mighty current of external things, invading every 
sense, and taking captive every thought and feel- 
ing. How shall it rear its head against all this ? 
how shall it be saved from being swept into obli- 
vion, but by deliberate, habitual, persevering, exer- 
cises of Devotion ? All that is low and evil in our 
nature is nourished incessantly, even against our 
will — we are immersed in its very atmosphere, and 
every breath we draw is tainted with it. But all 
that is high and holy must be nourished by our will, 
and by laborious flight into a better atmosphere, 
if ever we would have it breathe within us freely and 
with vigour. From the high places of devotion we 
must inhale new elasticity. On the wings of prayer 

p 



210 THE NECESSITY OF 

we must fly up into the presence of the Holy One, 
and bathe our fainting spirit in that pure Light of 
heaven, which is at the same time Life. 

Devotion, therefore, is indispensable to the nou- 
rishment of the Spiritual Life. Not as an indulgence 
merely, when the mind ascends with freedom towards 
its God ; but as a business, and a means of grace. 
We must not only yield to pray erfuln ess, but we 
must give ourselves to prayer, and set every sail to 
catch the passing breath of spirituality : not only 
vent the spontaneous feelings of our hearts, but 
awaken, cherish, and detain those feelings : not 
only, therefore, follow out a casual impulse, but by 
rules of regular devotion, by setting apart of times 
and places, and by the use of every rational help, 
we must pursue the work of Spiritual Nourishment. 
The sacred flame of piety is low and flickering ; 
we must inclose and shelter it from the blasts of 
earth. It too often sinks and slumbers ; we must 
sedulously stir the dying embers. It is at best 
but faint and feeble ; we must fan it into vigour. 
" I put thee in remembrance," says St. Paul to 
Timothy, " that thou stir up the gift of God which 
is in thee." " For like as fire has need of fuel," 
adds Theophylact, " so does the grace of the Holy 
Spirit require our personal earnestness, and care, 
and watchfulness, if we would have its genial 
warmth abiding in us." 

We see this in the case even of our blessed Lord. 



DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 211 

Though filled with the Spirit, he nevertheless made 
practice of devotion for the nourishment of that Spi- 
rit. He did not merely breathe it forth spontane- 
ously as occasion offered, but he used, of purpose, 
means for cherishing it ; breaking off from his em- 
ployments, and his friends, yea, and his charitable 
offices, that he might refresh his wearied mind by 
intercourse with God. " When he had sent the 
multitudes away, he went up into a mountain to 
pray," with the purpose and design of spending 
time in prayer to God. And St. Mark informs us, 
that " in the morning, rising up a great while be- 
fore day," — breaking off his sleep with the deliberate 
intent of engaging in devotion, — " he went out and 
departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." 
Nay, St. Luke records that Jesus " went up into a 
mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer 
to God." Here are instances of our Divine Master 
setting himself to prayer as a general means of 
nourishing Spiritual life. 

But we see him, further, on particular occasions 
seeking special strength by prayer. It was when 
he was about to consecrate his twelve disciples to 
the sacred office of Apostles, that he gave the 
whole previous night to prayer. When he was 
about to reveal to them his divine glory by his 
Transfiguration, " he took Peter, and James, and 
John, and went up into a mountain to pray" And 
when he saw the hour of his agony at hand, he 



212 THE NECESSITY OF 

sought for power for the dreadful struggle, and 
drank in the Spirit by which he might sustain it, 
in earnest, pleading, prayer, " Then cometh Jesus 
with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, 
and sailh unto them, Sit ye here, while I go and 
pray yonder ; and being in an agony, he prayed the 
more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great 
drops of blood falling down to the ground." 

And if, then, Prayer was thus necessary for the 
Holy Jesus, how much more is it necessary for his 
people, who are hourly beset and defiled by Sin ! 
No Christian ever lived without devotion. No man 
can be a Christian without making a determined 
business of devotion. Thus it was that the Apos- 
tles and the Saints of old maintained their Spiritual 
life. " They all continued with one accord in 
prayer and supplication." " Peter and John went 
up to the temple at the hour of prayer." " We 
will give ourselves continually to the word of God 
and prayer." " On the Sabbath day we went out 
of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont 
to be made." And hence we have so many exhort- 
ations in the Bible to Prayer. " Commune with 
your own heart, upon your bed, and be still." 
" Men ought always to pray, and not to faint." 
" Pray without ceasing ; in everything give thanks ; 
quench not the Spirit." " Praying always with all 
prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching 
thereunto with all perseverance." " Continue in 



DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. 213 

prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving." 
And hence too we observe in all the lives of holy 
men in every age, that a habit of devotion, and the 
careful regularity without which such a habit cannot 
exist, are prominent characteristics. And is there 
any Christian who has followed these examples, 
and obeyed those exhortations, who cannot testify 
from his own experience how essential a part of his 
existence is devotion, and how blessed are its influ- 
ences on the Spiritual life ? Have you not often 
gone to seek the face of God, oppressed in spirit 
and cold in heart, and when, without the purpose of 
devotion, and the determined execution of that pur- 
pose, you would not have experienced one spon- 
taneous aspiration of the mind towards Him, but 
would have sunk from bad to worse, from luke- 
warmness to sin, — have you not in such a frame 
been obliged to press upon yourself as a sacred 
duty what is in fact your highest privilege — and 
yet, nevertheless, through God's most gracious be- 
nediction on the effort, have you not returned from 
his invigorating presence buoyant with recovered 
energy, your very frame breathing a diviner life, and 
your countenance, like the countenance of Moses 
when he came down from the mount, all radiant 
with the glory of your God ? " Blessed is the man 
whom thou choosest, O God, and causest to approach 
unto thee ! He shall be satisfied with the good- 
ness of thy house, even of thy holy temple !" 



214 



CHAPTER II. 

DEVOUT EXERCISES OF MIND. 

When we endeavoured to trace the Develope- 
ment of the Spiritual Life, we found that it approxi- 
mates to its fullest form in proportion as we realize 
the idea of God in all the exercises of our moral 
nature — of mind, and heart, and will ; — in propor- 
tion as His presence is recognized by us — His help 
is confided in — and His will is made to regulate our 
own. Devotion, therefore, as the nourishment of 
this Life, must consist in the habitual use of all 
those means by which this exercise of our highest 
faculties may be made most ready and familiar, and 
ultimately most natural, to the soul. 

And of these means of nourishing the Spiritual 
Life, the first and most important, as preparatory 
to, and diffusing its influence over, all the rest, is 
the training of the Mind to constant recognition and 
enjoyment of the presence of God. Where by speak- 
ing of the enjoyment of that presence, it will be per- 
ceived that I mean something more by exercises 
of the Mind than merely intellectual cogitations, 
and speculative inquiry into divine things. I mean 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF MIND. 215 

all those states of the soul which have not in them 
any of the fluctuations of hope and fear, nor of the 
gradations of desire and determination, but which 
nevertheless are full of interest, though a quiet 
one ; of feeling, though a contemplative one. Those 
conditions of the mind which are termed by some 
the Sentiments — by others the Tastes — by others 
the ^Esthetic perceptions — by others the Immediate 
emotions,* and whose distinctive mark is that they 
are occupied with the present — the either visibly 
or ideally Present — without reference to Past, or 
Future ; and with this Present, as an object not 
of desire and pursuit, but simply of admiration, 
and complacency, and love. There is a movement 
in the mind, but it is not an onward movement. It 
is dilation without progression. It is as the ex- 
panding wavelets of the peaceful lake which is 

* As by Dr. Brown, who adds — " They differ from the intel- 
lectual states of mind, by that peculiar vividness of feeling which 
every one understands, but which it is impossible to express by 
any verbal definition, as truly impossible as to define sweetness 
or bitterness, by any other way than by a statement of the circum- 
stances in which they arise. There is no reason to fear, how- 
ever, from this impossibility of verbal definition, that any one 
who has tasted what is sweet or bitter, or enjoyed the pleasures 
of melody and fragrance, will be at all in danger of confounding 
these terms •, and as little reason is there to fear that our emo- 
tions will be confounded with our intellectual states of mind, by 
those who have simply remembered and compared, and have 
also loved or hated." 



216 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF MIND. 

complete within itself, not as the rushing current 
of the river that hastens towards the distant 
ocean. 

And hence the perplexity, and perhaps the 
scorn, which this subject of devotional exercises 
must produce in every mind in which those 
higher sentiments and totally un-selfish feelings 
have been checked, or have been wounded and 
destroyed, by intercourse with an unfeeling world. 
The noblest states of the Pious mind are those, not 
of intellect, nor of passion, but of quiet love ; and 
what wonder, therefore, if the dry abstract rea- 
soner, who lives in the region of mere words, or 
the selfish worldling, who knows of no emotions but 
those of hope and fear, advantage and disadvantage, 
should look upon the feelings of devotion as the 
effusions only of diseased imagination, and the fan- 
tasies of enthusiasm. By the spiritual taste alone 
can the things of the spirit be appreciated. The 
sweetest harmony does but jar upon the ear of him 
who has no music in his soul. The loveliest works 
of nature, or of art, have no attraction but to the 
eye of Taste. The grandest bursts of poetry or elo- 
quence possess no charm but for the mind of genius. 
The purest affections of friendship and love are un- 
known, nay, inconceivable, to the sensual and sordid 
heart. But just in the sphere of all these higher 
states of mind does Piety lie, and Devotion exer- 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF MIND. 217 

cise itself. For Piety is, not indeed mere Taste, 
nor Admiration, nor Affection, — but it is the ex- 
perience of these feelings in relation to God — it is 
the co-presence of His idea amidst them all, as the 
Being in whom alone they find their full enjoyment. 
And only, therefore, by reference to these feelings in 
their lower exercise, can we -illustrate what we mean 
by Piety,, and by Devotion, which is the breath of 
Piety, towards God. " Would you know what the 
affections are," it has been beautifully said, " ask 
your heart when, sad or glad, it is touched by 
thoughts of father, mother, brother, sister, friend, 
and in its sadness or gladness still feels a serenity 
as if belonging to the untroubled regions of the 
skies. Fancy comes and goes like the rainbow — 
passion like the storm — transiently beautifying or 
subliming the clouds of life. But affection is a per- 
manent light, without distinction of night and day, 
which once risen never sets, and always, in mild 
meridian, 

" Seeming immortal in its depth of rest." 
And to this " depth of rest" the Christian mind 
attains by all those exercises of devotion which bring 
God present to the consciousness and inweave his 
Idea with all we see, and all we read of, and all we 
share in with our fellow-men — by Meditation on 
God's works and ways — by Study of his Truth, 
— by Communion with his people. 



218 



SECTION I. 

DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 

Meditation, not merely as a stated exercise, 
but as a devout habit of connecting the Idea of 
God with all we see around us, is a most important 
means of nourishing the Spiritual life. Isaac exer- 
cised it when he " went out to meditate in the 
field, at even-tide." David, when he " considered 
the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon 
and the stars which he had ordained ;" and again, 
when he exclaimed, st I remember the days of old, 
I meditate on all thy works ; I muse on the works 
of thy hands." John, when he was " in the Spirit 
on the Lord's day." And Paul, when in holy musing 
he was carried out of himself, and " caught up to 
the third heaven." 

Which meditative habit will find its food and 
stimulant in Contemplation of the works and ways 
of God. For in those works and ways he manifests 
himself, and by them is he understood. Observa- 
tion and reflection must furnish the occasions of 
Devotion. Thought must precede feeling, though 
feeling is much more than thought. For genuine 



DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 



219 



mental feeling is nothing but a certain state and 
relation of the thoughts. And hence its perma- 
nence when the fire of animal life is gone. Here- 
by it becomes part of the soul itself, and partaker 
of its immortality. States of sensation become 
more feeble at every repetition, because they re- 
sult from the excitement of animal powers which 
are perishable. But states of mental feeling — 
taste, affection, sentiment, — are strengthened and 
matured by exercise, because they rise from, and 
are re-produced by thoughts, which are enduring. 
Not the most novel, but the most familiar, scenery ; 
not the most strange, but the best known, melodies ; 
not the newest, but the oldest friends ; not the most 
startling, but the most intimate and inborn truths ; 
are those which most delight the mind. 

And therefore by frequent contemplation of 
those works and ways of God, which repeat and 
reflect upon us from every side his great Idea, 
must we make the feeling of his presence intimate 
and familiar. In all places of his dominion He is 
present. Heaven and earth are full of his glory. 
And, therefore, in all places of his dominion will 
the meditative spirit recognize his presence and 
adore his glory. The foundation of all true Reli- 
gion is the grand truth of the Unity of God — of 
the universal agency of one and the same great 
Being in all events and things* And this unity is 



220 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 

not practically realized but in proportion as we see 
God in all things and all things in God. " He 
only," says Bishop Taylor, iC to whom all things are 
One, who draweth all things to One, and seeth all 
things in One, may enjoy true peace and rest of 
spirit."* Whenever we contemplate powers at 
work in Nature, or in Providence, or in Grace, 
which we neglect to refer up to the One undivided 
source of life, we are resting in something below 
God, and breaking into fragments his Unity. Nay, 
when we contemplate God too distinctly under dif- 
ferent aspects, as sometimes the God of Nature, 
and sometimes of Providence, and sometimes of 
Grace, we are going far to make this same most 
dangerous separation, and to set in opposition in 
our minds the various attributes and workings of 
the single One.f Who does not feel that men have 
spoken and written as if the Jehovah of the Jews 
had abandoned all the rest of the world to meaner 
hands — and as if the miserable heathen were not 
only " without God," through the blindness of their 
own heart, but without his sovereign rule and 

* Which sentence is borrowed from Thomas a. Kempis : — 
" Cui omnia unum sunt, et omnia ad unum trahit, et omnia in 
uno videt ; potest stabilis corde esse, et in Deo pacificusmanere." 

De Imit. Christi, I. iii. 

t It is a dull and obtuse mind that must divide in order to 
distinguish. And in such we may contemplate the source of 
superstition and idolatry. Coleridge. 



DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 221 

fatherly care, — his "doing good and giving rain from 
heaven and fruitful seasons ;" — nay, and as if the 
God of the awakened penitent had not been also 
the God of the previous prodigal, nor were the 
God of those around him in " the world," who, 
amidst all their ignorance and sinfulness, are never- 
theless " made of one blood with him," and have 
their common Father, " not far from every one of 
them." It is the God of Nature who is also the 
God of Revelation ; and the God of Providence 
who is the God of Grace. God has not revealed 
himself by one method exclusively, but by many ; 
and God does not work in one domain exclusively, 
but in all. And therefore we must have an eye for 
all his revelations of himself, and our total impres- 
sion of his character must be collected and com- 
pounded from them all. Each is imperfect, taken 
by itself, but each contributes something to the 
grand and perfect whole. Let the man of observa- 
tion, and the man of experiment, and the man of 
science, and the man of history, and the man of the 
bible, admire, each one in his particular sphere, the 
marvellous revelations of divine power, and wisdom, 
and goodness; — but let the man of large Devout- 
ness, standing in the centre of a sphere which cir- 
cumscribes them all, trace up (by faith, wherever 
sight may fail him,) all these several rays of glory into 
that stupendous BEING who is power, and wisdom, 



222 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 

and goodness, all in one, and whom he neverthe- 
less, (amazing thought !) can call his Father and his 
Friend, 

See how St. Paul, in one short passage, (the first 
and second chapters of the Epistle to the Romans,) 
commemorates four different modes by which God 
manifests himself to man. By the works of Nature, 
which reveal his Majesty and Might. " For the 
invisible things of God, — namely, his eternal power 
and Godhead — are clearly seen, being understood 
by the things that are made." By the laws of natu- 
ral consequence, which reveal his righteous Displea- 
sure against Sin, by annexing to it, nay, drawing 
out from it, even as the fruit is developed from the 
seed, (compare James i. 15.) its own appropriate 
punishment. " For the wrath of God," says Paul, 
" is revealed against all unrighteousness and un- 
godliness of men;" and if we inquire How? we dis- 
cover from the whole context of the passage, espe- 
cially from verses 24, 26, and 28, that the Apostle 
viewed this revelation as being made by God giv- 
ing up the heathen to the brutalizing ignorance and 
the vile affections which Idolatry fosters. By the 
voice of inward Conscience, which reveals the Holy 
Will of God ; for this " shows the essence of the 
law written in their hearts, their conscience also 
bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while 
accusing or else excusing one another." And, 



DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 223 

lastly, by the voice of Christ and the proclamations 
of his Gospel, which reveal the pardoning Compas- 
sion of God. " For therein is the righteousness of 
God by faith revealed to faith," — his willingness to 
pardon, and approve, and bless every returning 
sinner, upon the simple ground of faith in his Com- 
passion. 

All things, therefore, are manifestations of God, 
and from all things will the meditative Christian 
pass on to God. He looks around upon the earth, 
or upward to the heavens, and amidst the might 
and loveliness of Nature he thinks of him who 
made, and who sustains and blesses all. Nature is 
to him but the symbol of his Maker — the contem- 
plation of it, but the steps by which his feeble 
powers are helped to climb the heights of Medita- 
tion, and at last to reach the Lofty One that sits 
supreme above his works. 

Nor less devoutly does the Christian recognize 
his heavenly Father in the close concatenation of 
Events, and in all the ordinary, as well as the sur- 
prising turns of Providence. History becomes to 
him alive with indications of his God. And like 
the sacred Historians, who never separate earth 
from heaven ; events which are but products and 
results, from the root and cause of them in the 
will of the Supreme ; nor men, in all their various 
purposes and works, from God, who uses and con- 



224 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 

trols them all — so also does the meditative Chris- 
tian recognize in all occurrences an all-directing 
God. " The fortune of Alexander," says Bishop 
Newton, " is but another name for the providence 
of God." And still more generally may we say, 
The fortune of the world, in its innumerable parts 
and its immeasurable whole, is but the ordination 
of God. This is the clew which guides the devout 
man safely through the labyrinth of events, tangled 
with mazes and perplexed with errors, and by this 
he walks in peace. He may not see, still less make 
out, the objects round him. He may not be able to 
tell the way he came, nor that which he is going, 
nor what will be the next turn in his path. But 
then he has the clew ! he holds fast the clew ! and 
this, therefore — implicitly and confidently, — igno- 
rantly if you will ; but with an intelligent ignorance 
— blindly, if you please ; but not without inward 
light — this he grasps, and this he follows, with a 
quiet adoration. 

But still more does he feel the unity of God's 
unceasing agency in that history which is, beyond 
all others, full of interest and instruction to him — 
the history of Himself. Viewed in the light of 
Faith and Love, how wondrous to him is the story 
of his life ! Not a circumstance therein, but he 
can either see in it the hand of God, or can believe 
that it was there. Not a single tint of dark or 



DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 225 

bright in all that many-coloured picture, but is 
harmonized into one quiet whole, by the soften- 
ing light of God's uplifted countenance shed 
over all. 

And then, especially in what are called the in- 
fluences of his Grace ; (though all is Grace, through 
nature, history, and providence, from first to last,) 
in the truths and promises of his holy Word — the 
work and invitations of his Son — the consolations of 
his Spirit — and the thoughts that from these seve- 
ral sources stream into the mind and fill it with a 
peace, a hope, a vigour which no other revelations 
can afford — O here it is, above all, that the devout 
believer loves to recognize his God ! Here, to look 
out with an elevating awe upon the wide-spread 
ocean of his goodness, till contemplation breaks off 
and loses itself in Wonder ; till all objects and all 
thoughts find their confluence and their outburst 
in one deep broad stream of Adoration, — " O the 
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and know- 
ledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments 
and his ways past finding out ! For who hath known 
the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been his coun- 
sellor ? or who hath first given unto him that it 
should be recompensed to him again ? For of him, 
and through him, and to him, are all things : to 
whom be glory for ever ! Amen !" 

Thus, then, Adoration is the offspring of Contem- 

Q 



226 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 

plative Devotion. We glide along the ever-deep- 
ening tide of thought into a new world. Outward 
objects vanish from the consciousness. Inward 
thoughts subside into one vast wave of undistin- 
guishable feeling which lifts the mind above itself. 
The ideas of power, wisdom, love, unite, and blend 
themselves in One great Being whose presence fills 
the soul, and with whom we commune, as it were 
instinctively, in unutterable prayer — the prayer, not 
of understanding, but of Faith — the inward gather- 
ing of the spirit into itself to offer itself up to God 
— the gazing on his glory till new life flows from it 
through the heart, and that life is felt to be the life 
of God. Self is no longer thought of, nor the wants 
of self. We lie passive in our Father's hands and 
know no will but his. We are given up to his in- 
fluences. We inhale his quickening Spirit. We 
join with Angels and Archangels, and with all the 
company of heaven, to laud and magnify his glori- 
ous name ; evermore praising him, and saying, 
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and 
earth are full of thy glory ; Glory be to thee, O 
Lord most High ! 

Speak we here of things unknown, and feelings 
set too high for man ? Nay, but we speak the lan- 
guage, and express the feelings of our Common 
prayer book, in its holiest office. And we give ut- 
terance to thoughts which every pious heart au- 



DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 227 

thenticates. And we touch a string, in unison with 
which such hearts are strung, and therefore do they 
vibrate with it, and swell the trembling prelude 
into a sustained and full-voiced chant of Adora- 
tion which rises, like a fragrant cloud of incense, 
up to God. Thus felt and chanted one, who 
now has joined the choir of heaven,* when he ex- 
claimed before the Majesty of Nature — 

" O dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee, 
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, 
Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer, 
I worshipped the Invisible alone." t 

Thus felt another kindred spirit, when he sang of 
one who, having gazed upon the loveliness of earth, 
and sea, and sky, — 

" His spirit drank 
The spectacle : sensation, soul, and form, 
All melted into him ; they swallow'd up 
His animal being ; in them did he live 
And by them did he live ; they were his life. 
In such access of mind, in such high hour 
Of visitation from the living God, 
Thought was not j in enjoyment it expired. 
No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; 
Rapt into still communion that transcends 
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise. 



* " Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit, 

Nulli flebilior quani mihi !" 
t Coleridge. — Hymn before Mont Blanc. 



228 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 

His mind was a thanksgiving to the power 
That made him ; it was blessedness and love." * 

And need I add, that thus mused, and kindled, 
and adored, a greater than all uninspired men, " the 
man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the 
God of Jacob, and the sweet Psalmist of Israel," 
when " the Spirit of the Lord spake by him, and 
His word was in his tongue." Take a single in- 
stance in that glorious Hymn, the hundred and 
fourth Psalm. He had begun, therein, with 
Contemplation of the " honour and majesty" of 
God ; — he had gazed upon the light with which he 
clothed himself as with a garment, and the heavens 
that he stretched out as a curtain — -he had looked 
abroad upon the steadfast earth, the mighty deep, and 
the refreshing streams ; — he had meditated on the 
various provision which the Lord had made for the 
sustenance of man, and beasts, and universal life ; — 
but long before his survey is completed, out of Con- 
templation springs forth devout Emotion — his soul 
begins to expand, and to ascend, and press beyond 
herself; the Spirit within him breathes forth to- 
wards the Spirit of the Universe, and he exclaims 
in short, re-iterated, broken bursts of Adoration — 
" O Lord, how manifold are thy works ! in wisdom 
hast thou made them all : the earth is full of thy 

* Wordsworth. " The Excursion." 



DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 229 

riches !" — " The glory of the Lord shall endure 
for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works." — " I 
will sing unto the Lord as long as I live ; I will 
sing praise to my God while I have my being. 
My meditation of Him shall be sweet: I will be glad 
in the Lord I" — " Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. 
Praise ye the Lord !" 

Christian Reader, do we cultivate this spirit of holy 
Meditation enough ? Do we not too often think more 
of ourselves when we draw near to God in prayer, 
than of Him in whose bright presence we stand ? 
And do we not thus defeat one great purpose of 
Devotion, which is to raise us out of self and its 
anxieties, and above the world and its vexatious 
occupations, and away from sense and its importu- 
nate images, into the pure untroubled region of 
the fair and good ? If we make Devotion merely 
the enumeration of our wants, our fears, and our 
hopes, — of our weaknesses, our sorrows, and our 
sins, — we still are lingering amidst those wants and 
fears and sorrows and sins ; we are looking only on 
a reflected image of ourselves and of our circum- 
stances ; we seem to be leaving the world beneath 
us, yet, like a troubled ghost which cleaves still to 
the flesh, we are only hovering around the spot 
where its remains are laid. But, if we look forth 
upon God, in self-forgetting Meditation, we are won 
away unconsciously from all our lower wants and 



230 DEVOTIONAL MEDITATION. 

fears ; and when we rise up from the vision of his 
excellence and descend again to meet them, we are 
astonished to perceive how insignificant they were ; 
we behold them in a light shed down from heaven, 
and we can bear our griefs, and set about our du- 
ties, with a new and tranquil mind. Even as when 
the distempered man has tossed all night upon a 
sea of tumultuous dreams, and his soul is shattered 
by them — he breaks away from the bewildering 
trance, with morning's dawn ; looks out upon the 
fresh and sparkling prospect ; drinks in the air of 
heaven ; and is astonished at the very possibility of 
being shaken, as he has been, by unreal phantoms of 
the brain. be sure of this — the more we think 
of God and realize his presence, the more shall we 
become like God. We shall catch some faint re- 
semblance of the features that we are familiar 
with, and while we gaze upon his glory we shall be 
changed into the same image from glory to glory, 
by the Spirit of the Lord. 



231 



SECTION II. 



DEVOTIONAL READING. 



The Spiritual life is a mental life ; and by the exer- 
cise of Mind, therefore, must it be nourished. But 
Mind is exercised not only by Observation and Re- 
flection, but by appropriation of the observation and 
reflection of other men. And this appropriation is ac- 
complished most effectually by Reading. Reading, 
therefore, is an important means of nourishing the 
Spiritual life ; — the devout perusal and self-applica- 
tion of such writings as elevate the mind, refine the 
moral sense, and rouse the slumbering energies. It 
is not easy to originate our own states of mind. We 
need not only occasions for thought, but the sug- 
gestion of thought. We need not merely truths and 
feelings stored up in ourselves, but the daily appli- 
cation of some impulse from without to wake up and 
bring out those truths, and exercise those feelings. 
And for this God has vouchsafed, besides the voice 
of our immediate friends in temporary intercourse, 
the words of our fellow Christians of every age and 
clime in permanent writings. Blessed be our all- 



2-32 DEVOTIONAL READING. 

providing Father for such helps ! The Christian 
will prize them, and will diligently use them — not 
for the gratification of curiosity, not for the whiting 
away an idle hour, not for the substitution of a me- 
chanical operation in the place of a spiritual exercise, 
not to make Attention stand proxy for Reflection ; 
but that by Attention, Reflection maybe put in mo- 
tion — by the borrowed spark the light of our own 
spirit may be kindled. How often will the reading 
of some pointed question open up a new view of 
our spiritual state, and set us searching into our- 
selves for days. How often will some one suggest- 
ed Idea illuminate whole regions of the mind, and 
make a thousand subjects, hitherto confused and 
dark, at once and in a moment clear to us. And 
how gently elevating is the quiet infusion of some 
soothing or awakening feeling, which finds and 
mixes with a thousand kindred emotions, and stirs 
them all into full life ! It steals beneath our heavy 
stranded mind, and before we are conscious of its 
influence, floats it nearer to the haven where we 
would be. It breathes softly on our slumbering 
spirit like gentlest music, and insinuates itself 
amidst our confused conceptions, and rouses each 
successive train of feeling, till we find ourselves, we 
know not how or why, awake, and alive, to God. 
Let the Christian therefore never be discouraged 
when his mind is dull and indevout, but turn to 



DEVOTIONAL READING. 233 

some awakening volume, some favourite and influ- 
ential passage, some suitable prayer, some spiritual 
hymn, above all, some inspiring psalm or chapter of 
the word of God, and wait in humble faith, — out of 
which faith will steal a half-formed prayer — for the 
revival of his spirit, the breathing into him a de- 
vout and holy frame. It is the essence of wisdom, 
if we cannot gain directly our object, to take a cir- 
cuitous course for its attainment, to address ourselves 
to some one intermediate means (however distant 
from our ultimate end), by which it may at last be 
reached. And it is the Christian's wisdom to do 
this, as, generally, for the regulation of his mind, and 
the formation of his character, so also for the sus- 
tenance of the Spiritual Life. That life is, alas ! a 
weak and sickly thing, and it must be fostered with 
the most assiduous and much-contriving care ; — it 
is a delicate emanation, a breath, — and it must be 
fanned with gentlest solicitude. We can do no- 
thing, and can be nothing, of ourselves ; but what 
can we not do (through God's gracious blessing on 
those susceptibilities which he himself has rendered 
capable of such manifold influences) by the wise 
and persevering use of various, minute, and in them- 
selves most insignificant, means ! 

But then these helps must be ever carefully used 
as means. They must never be perverted to super- 
sede the very end they are intended to promote. 



234 DEVOTIONAL READING. 

The perusal of the page, the reading of the chapter, 
the utterance of the form of prayer, the singing 
of the hymn, must never be rested in as of them- 
selves devotion, but only as the graciously provided 
food and nourishment of devotion. No man can 
rightly think and pray and feel for us ; — he can 
only give us helps whereby we may think, and 
pray, and feel for ourselves. Nothing is ours but 
what we mentally appropriate. Nothing can bene^ 
fit us but what we actually ourselves do. To our 
own substance must all foreign aliment be assimi- 
lated, if we would grow thereby. Through our own 
veins must it propel accelerated life. We must 
not only read, mark, and learn, but we must in- 
wardly digest, whatever God in his good providence 
has furnished for our spiritual food. 

And how then shall we most effectually employ 
Devotional Reading, for our Spiritual Nourishment ? 
Let us suppose the word of God to be the means 
that we would use towards this end, what method 
shall we take? 

That method must be determined by the par- 
ticular object that we have in view. There are 
various objects for which we may read the word of 
God. For general information concerning the plans 
and doings of God in his education of the human 
race. For particular insight into the scheme of 
Salvation which he has revealed and executed by 



DEVOTIONAL READING. 235 

his dear Son. For getting our minds imbued with 
the leading ideas of Christian doctrine, and the 
governing principles of Christian practice — in short, 
for all things necessary to a godly life, for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righte- 
ousness. And according to our object so must be 
our method of perusal. For all true method must 
be suited to, nay, take its rise from, the specific na- 
ture of the subject we are treating. Whether our 
perusal shall be cursory and continuous, or critical 
and fragmentary — whether it shall collect and com- 
bine various particulars, or trace steadily the deve- 
lopement of some one truth — whether we shall pass- 
ively yield up our attention to the sacred text, or 
only take therefrom materials for active personal 
reflection — all this will be regulated by the specific 
end for which we open the holy book, at each par- 
ticular time. This only must be constant : — that 
we have some end ; some deliberate purpose present 
to our consciousness when we consult the oracles of 
God ; and that we do not take them up, glance over 
them, and put them down again, with an unmean- 
ing listlessness. 

When, then, our object is the nourishment of the 
Spiritual Life, this devotional end determines the 
corresponding devotional method to be pursued. 
We must bring to the bible such a spirit, and adopt 
in reading it such a course, as may best conduce to 



236 DEVOTIONAL READING. 

the strengthening of our sense of God's immediate 
presence to our minds. 

For this purpose we should meditate upon the 
bible as conveying to us the Voice of God himself. 
The Scriptures were written, it is true, by many 
and various men, in many and various ages. They 
were written by these men for the immediate use 
and benefit of their contemporaries, and with refer- 
ence to the circumstances which surrounded them. 
But then those who thus wrote were partakers of the 
Spirit of God. What they said and wrote as the Am- 
bassadors of God, they said and wrote not from the 
conclusions merely of their own limited understand- 
ing, but from the secret inspirations of divine wisdom. 
And it is the special mark of wisdom (which mark, 
therefore, the divine wisdom possesses in perfec- 
tion) that it so treats particulars as to bring them 
under general principles ; and in the forms of the 
local and the temporary, conveys the essence of what 
is universal and eternal. And consequently the 
Scriptures do not convey to us the voice of men 
merely, (however shrewd, and experienced, and 
devout they may have been,) solving the particular 
questions, and directing the particular duties, of 
their fellow men around them ; but they convey to 
us, in and with this form of the revelation, — accom- 
panying and sustaining each particular voice even 
as a fundamental melody pervades and limits all the 



DEVOTIONAL READING. 237 

variations of which it is susceptible, and may be 
traced throughout them all — the voice of God him- 
self, addressed to all men in all ages, and solving 
the general questions, and directing the general 
duties, which belong to man as man. 

It is the wisdom, therefore, of the devout reader 
of Scripture to discern this voice of God; to adore 
the Sovereign King in the person of his Ambassa- 
dors ; to recognize the Spirit pervading and actuat- 
ing the living creatures which announce his pre- 
sence, yea, breathing even in the wheels which are 
the conductors of his influence ; and thus to make 
the Unseen God as effectually present to us by the 
forms of language and of thought which the bible 
has preserved to us, as He was made present to 
Adam and to the Patriarchs, and to the Prophets, 
by the forms (for even to them by forms only could 
he show himself) of bodily appearance, and of au- 
dible sound. It is in the mind and heart that God's 
presence must be realized, and it is only by the 
mind and heart, — by what these bring to the con- 
templation of his manifestations, and retain within 
themselves of his communications, — that this real- 
ization can be effected. There can be no other 
perception of God, to a created being, but the per- 
ception of his Idea in the consciousness ; and the 
fulness, and the corresponding benefit, of that per- 
ception will depend upon the frequency with which 



238 DEVOTIONAL READING. 

that Idea is revived — the steadiness with which it 
is sustained — and the intimacy and comprehensive- 
ness of its connexion with all other ideas in the 
mind. And therefore we are not to think our- 
selves less privileged than the saints of old, be- 
cause we have not extraordinary manifestations 
of God. We, equally with them, have every op- 
portunity of recognizing Him in the things around 
us ; and, for the special revelation which came rare- 
ly and transiently to the astonished ear of each par- 
ticular man of God, we have, instead, the lasting re- 
cord of all his revelations to all his prophets, placed 
permanently in our hands, and accessible to our 
daily meditation. In many an age " the word of 
the Lord was precious/' that is, scarce ; " there 
was no open vision." And even the Priests and 
Prophets of God were obliged to " enquire at the 
word of the Lord," from time to time, as they need- 
ed counsel ; to consult the Urim and Thummim ; 
to present themselves before the oracle. Whereas 
we have now this word ever open to our view, nay, 
stored up in our memories, and at all times and in 
all places we may enter into the Sanctuary and com- 
mune with our Father ; even as it is written, " I will 
dwell in them and walk in them, and I will put my 
laws into their mind and write them in their heart, 
and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, 
saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from 



DEVOTIONAL READING. 239 

the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith 
the Lord." The only difference is, that God's voice 
to us is not that of particular direction in particular 
cases, but of general principles included in, and 
illustrated by, those particular instances recorded 
for our admonition ; and applicable, by the heaven - 
directed judgment of the devoutly pondering Chris- 
tian, to all cases as they arise. Wherein the dif- 
ference is our advantage. We gain thereby a ge- 
neral guide through all the paths of life ; and we 
are raised, moreover, from the mere blind obedience 
to specific laws, which may be yielded by a servant 
or a child, to that intelligent following out of gene- 
ral principles, which is the reasonable service of a 
freely acting man. " We are delivered from the 
law, being dead to that wherein we were held, that 
we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the 
oldness of the letter." It is the law of Spiritual 
wisdom, no longer pealing trumpet-tongued amidst 
the terrors of Sinai, but breathing forth its still 
small voice into the hushed and meditative con- 
science, which now directs our course. It is in the 
sanctified judgment of the church of Christ that we 
may now realize the prophetic promise, " Ye shall 
hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way, 
walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and 
when ye turn to the left." " My son, keep thy 
father's commandments, and forsake not the law of 



240 DEVOTIONAL READING. 

thy mother; bind them continually upon thine heart, 
and tie them about thy neck ; when thou goest it 
shall lead thee, when thou sleepest it shall keep thee, 
when thou awakest it shall talk with t/ieef" 

Did the Lord God talk with Adam and Eve in 
the garden, and they " heard his voice ?" Even 
so will he talk with you, if you devoutly listen to 
the echo of that voice, conveyed, — yea, and ten 
thousand times reverberated, — in his sacred Scrip- 
tures. Did the word of the Lord come to Abraham 
in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy 
shield and thy exceeding great reward? In the 
bible does that same word come to you, if walking 
in the steps of Abraham's faith, and you may trust 
in it as for you. Did God call to Samuel on his 
bed, and this again and again, while yet the inex- 
perienced youth was ignorant of the heavenly ori- 
gin of the voice ? Just so does he call to you, and 
O how patiently and perseveringly, waiting for the 
moment when the Spirit shall be disengaged from 
earthly sounds and hushed into attention, and in- 
structed in the meaning of the sacred summons. 
And therefore to that voice you may reply, — as 
directly as did Samuel when thus taught to " know 
the Lord," — with as intense a feeling of the divine 
presence, — " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth !" 
Did God speak directly to Moses and the Israel- 
ites, to Elijah and all the prophets, to Paul and the 



DEVOTIONAL READING. 241 

Apostles ? The same God speaks, by their recorded 
words to me and you, and we may cry with them, 
" Behold, the Lord oar God hath showed us his 
glory and his greatness !" 

Take then the revelations of the bible as made, 
in all their permanent essence, to yourself. Feel 
that you have part and lot in all that God has 
given to cheer and guide his ignorant and sinful 
creatures ; remember that the very historical occur- 
rences recorded " happened unto them for ensam- 
ples, and are written for our admonition upon whom 
the ends of the world are come ;" and throw your- 
self back into the scenes and circumstances of the 
olden time, not as a spectator merely, but as a deeply 
interested partaker in the revelation made. Help 
your sluggish conception by every accessory thought 
that may give vividness and substance to the facts 
recorded by the sacred writers. Place yourself, in 
imagination, under the frowning precipice of Sinai. 
Stand with Elijah in the entrance of that awful 
cave when there swept by it the mysterious " still 
small voice." Follow Jesus with the multitude who 
" pressed upon him for to hear him." Sit with them 
at his feet around the beautiful mount of the beati- 
tudes near Capernaum. Enter with the disciples 
into the upper chamber where they supped with 
their affectionate Master and received his parting 
exhortations. Lie prostrate by the side of Saul when 



242 * DEVOTIONAL READING. 

he heard the voice from heaven, and trembling and 
astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
do ? Make thus the bible as familiar and inward 
to your mind as the scenes of your boyhood, and 
the dreams of your youth ; lose yourself in its reali- 
ties, identify yourself with its occurrences; "pour 
out," (as has been beautifully written,) " your whole 
undivided heart before the oracles of God ; give 
your enlarged spirit to the communion of his word ; 
— when it blames be you blamed, when it exhorts 
be you exhorted ; when it condescends to argument, 
by its arguments be you convinced; be free to take all 
its moods, and to catch all its inspirations :"* — and 
you shall find it all transparent with the radiance of 
present Deity and the glory of the Lord ; you shall 
hear each page proclaiming to you the voice of the 
Most High ; and you will receive its several com- 
munications, " not as the word of men, but, as it is 
in truth, the word of God, which effectually work- 
eth in them that believe." 

And thus consulting the word of God, you will 
find it your guide, your counsellor, and your own fa- 
miliar friend. You may bring to it your perplexities, 
and find it furnishing satisfactory decisions of many 
a harassing question; you may bring to it your heart, 
and find it speaking home thereto direction, warning, 
peace. Even as Abraham was permitted to com- 

* Irving's Orations. 



DEVOTIONAL READING. 243 

mune with the Lord about the doom of Sodom, and 
though but dust and ashes, to inquire, " Shall not 
the Judge of all the earth do right?" even as 
Habakkuk the Prophet stood upon his watch and 
set himself upon the tower to watch and see what 
God would say unto him, and what he should an- 
swer when he was reproved ; — so may the devout 
man carry up all his difficulties to the word of God, 
and derive from it the satisfactory decision, if not 
the full solution, of the questions which the facts of 
nature, the march of events, the history of man, the 
complicated riddle of the world, may raise within 
his mind. Not indeed that he will expect to under- 
stand the ways of God, (for what child can under- 
stand his Father ? what uninitiated man can pene- 
trate the mystery of even the commonest art ?) but 
that he will learn the principles on which they are 
arranged. Still less that he will turn the sacred 
page into a horoscope for forecasting private or po- 
litical fortunes — or dip into the holy volume to dis- 
cover what special answers , may turn up to special 
questions about doctrine or practice — or bring to 
it his selfish inquiries, in the hope of authoriz- 
ing the bias of his will by obtaining some ora- 
cular reply — or endeavour to transplant the re- 
corded sentiments and actions proper to some men 
on some occasions, root and branch into his own 
bosom and his own conduct — all this would be only 



244 DEVOTIONAL READING. 

playing over again the heathen game of Supersti- 
tion, in a new field : — but that in the Wisdom of 
God he will discover the seeds of things, the princi- 
ples of the divine character, the examples of the 
divine procedure, the declarations of the divine will 
— guided by which he may adore and acquiesce in, 
even when he cannot comprehend, the government 
of God. These are to him far more than heathen 
oracles — far better than philosophical speculation — 
far surer than political cunning. " When they shall 
say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar 
spirits and unto wizards that peep and mutter, — 
should not a people seek unto their God ? To the 
law, and to the testimony ; if they speak not accord- 
ing to this word, it is because there is no light in 
them." " Thou through thy commandments hast 
made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are 
ever with me. I have more understanding than all 
my teachers ; for thy testimonies are my medita- 
tion. I understand more than the ancients, be- 
cause I keep thy precepts. Through thy precepts 
I get understanding ; therefore I hate every false 
way." 



245 



SECTION III. 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 



There is nothing more false, and more unjust to 
true religion, than to imagine that it stunts the 
growth of the human mind and withdraws it from 
the genial atmosphere of social life, in which alone 
it can blossom and expand, into the withering pri- 
vacy of selfish pride or moody fancy. The fact is, 
on the contrary, that pious sentiments, like all 
others that are great and good, require social inter- 
course for their due developement, press naturally 
out to seek a kindred feeling in our fellow-men, and 
find their full expression and enjoyment only when 
re-echoed and intensified by sympathy. And there- 
fore some of the most important and effectual exer- 
cises of the pious mind, are those which are suppli- 
ed by mutual interchange of thought, and blendipg 
of emotion, in the friendly, family, and public, wor- 
ship of Almighty God. Fellowship with others the 
mind must have in order to its due developement — 
this fellowship the world cannot supply — but in the 
family of Christ it may be found. 

It is important to consider this point, for if there 
be one thing which specially characterizes Christi- 



246 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 

anity in its relation to mankind, above all other 
forms of piety, it is its spirit of brotherly affection, 
and its means and ordinances for mutual edification. 
It is specially the religion of "the Spirit" — the mind 
and reason ; and it supplies by its social organiza- 
tion the only atmosphere in which the highest pro- 
ducts of the mind and reason can be unfolded. 

Remember, then, that the very first condition of 
human improvement, and human happiness," is fel- 
lowship with our kind. Without Society we should 
not be men. With all our senses, faculties, and 
susceptibilities, and with every opportunity in. ex- 
ternal nature for their exercise, that exercise would 
not take place to any extent, without the relations 
of social life. It is on the mother's bosom, and in 
the father's arms, that the infant begins to feel, be- 
fore it is acquainted with, the best experiences of 
its nature. It is in the family circle, the friendly 
neighbourhood, the widening sphere of social sym- 
pathies, that we learn to know ourselves, our wants, 
our capacities, our joys, our hopes. And there- 
fore no happy condition of mankind has ever been 
imagined in which the idea of society and sociable- 
ness was not a prominent one. The depth of all 
conceivable misery is imaged by banishment to a 
solitary rock, unknown, unpitied, unsympathized 
with, where the craving heart eats inward and de- 
vours itself. And the height of ail conceivable 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 247 

happiness is imagined in the finding our own mind 
reflected from the mind of multitudes around us, 
our own thoughts reciprocated, our own sentiments 
re-echoed, in some vast community actuated by one 
will, and beating as with one pulse. Till Society 
was furnished, Paradise itself was insufficient for 
human happiness. " The Lord God said, It is not 
good that the man should be alone ; I will make 
him an help meet for him." And in the full per- 
fection of Society consists the blessedness of the 
predicted kingdom of Christ. It is when the mysti- 
cal body of the second Adam is completed, and the 
Fulness of the Deity — the sphere of the holy ones 
in light, in which He dwells and through which he 
diffuses his especial presence — is perfected by the 
re-union of the whole family in heaven and earth ; 
it is when thus " in the dispensation of the fulness 
of times he shall have gathered together in one all 
things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and 
which are on earth ;" that " the tabernacle of God 
shall be with men, and he will dwell with them and 
they shall be his people, and God himself shall be 
with them and be their God." Out of many to 
make one ; out of infinitely various parts to form a 
full harmonious whole ; — this is the grand design 
of God, this is the happiness to which he destines 
man. Everything that is separate, and separately 
exercised, shall pass away, but the communion of 



248 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 

love shall be eternal. Prophecies shall fail — 
tongues shall cease — knowledge shall vanish away 
— but Charity never faileth. 

But forget not that such union and communion 
can never be supplied by the common intercourse 
of an irreligious world. I know that it is in the 
world that this developement of mind and heart is 
specially sought. I know that it is because of this, 
and of the gratification which accompanies it, that 
this world is, especially by the young and ardent, 
so diligently worshipped. And I grant, moreover, 
that such intercourse does bring out the buds of 
feeling — that its influence on the mind is such as 
for a time to seem all-sufficient for its growth and 
happiness. An almost universal welcome greets 
the new guest in the halls of social pleasure, and 
winning sympathy comes forth to meet his timid 
thoughts and solicit them into full developement. 
Every countenance smiles upon him. Every hand 
is extended to him. It is the spring-time — the 
cool, fresh, early, spring-time — of his being, and 
truly does he find 

" The genial season hath such power, 
His very heart seems blossoming, 
Each thought a fragrant flower." 

But who has ever found this spring eternal ? 
Whose heart has not shrunk and withered under 
the chilling blasts which soon begin to sweep across 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 249 

it? Who has given his youthful confidence to a 
much-promising world, and has not been fooled 
and disappointed — yea betrayed, — yea mocked, 
perhaps, for his simplicity ? Society is a necessity 
of our nature. Not a mere gathering together of 
multitudes, an aggregation of persons — but an in- 
terchange of thought, an assimilation of minds. 
Such society this world boasts to be possessed of, 
and professes to throw open to the inexperienced 
youth. But such society it does not give. There 
is union without unity — association without assort- 
ment — connexion without conjunction — a seeming 
whole composed of incongruous parts — straw in am- 
ber — iron and clay ; — and they " cannot cleave one 
to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." 
The attractive power of the social principle is more 
than balanced by the repulsive power of the selfish 
principle. Each man, while he seems to lose him- 
self in others, is at the same time carefully pursu- 
ing his own particular end ; and he unites with 
those around him, not to adopt their ends and fur- 
ther them, (which is the idea of true benevolence,) 
but to use them for his own end, and subordinate 
them to himself. 

And O the blight which settles on the opening 
mind, and dries it up into a stubborn misanthropy, 
when this true character of worldly intercourse be- 
comes unveiled ! Life becomes a blank. Expect- 



250 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 



ation dies away. The heart gets seared. Disap- 
pointment produces indignation. And indignation 
(like all intense emotion) argues from the particular 
to the universal, and pronounces all creation barren, 
all hope a mockery, all the best affections an unreal 
show. Men find their hearts befooled by a deceitful 
world, and they go on to shut and bar them against 
God himself. They have no susceptibility for his 
tenderness, no ear for his invitations of compassion 
by Jesus Christ — the whole head is sick, and the 
whole heart is faint. And the solitariness which 
they find amidst a crowded world is increased a 
thousand-fold by the solitariness of their own hearts. 
They have no home within, to which to fly from 
the neglects of outward life. They have no friend 
in the bosom into whose ear to pour their plaints. 
Despoiled of confidence in man, and ignorant of 
confidence in God, empty, desolate, alone — O what 
shall the poor baffled spirit do to reach its proper 
destination? How shall it be saved from moral 
death, and everlasting barrenness ? Where shall it 
find its proper nourishment, and expand into its 
proper magnitude? 

Where but in the bosom of the church of Christ? 
How but by the infusion of the new-creating Spirit 
of Life ? By what appliances but by immersion in 
that atmosphere of the Spirit which is formed around 
the sacred circles of friendly, and family, and pub- 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 251 

lie prayer ? From intercourse with Christian men 
will he catch the Spirit of that intercourse. Some 
one thought will be awakened; some one feeling, 
melted by the warm breath of a generous sympa- 
thy, will begin again to flow. Imaginations long 
dead, desires long smothered, hopes long scorned, 
will once more lift their head. He will listen like 
an exile to the long-forgotten sounds of his mother 
tongue. He will feel that he is still a man, and that 
in humanity there lies enveloped something more 
than human, which may still be cherished into life. 
The avenues to his interior soul will once again be 
opened, and " when the full tide of devotion has 
entered the channel thus prepared for it, he will hail 
its coming with joy, and bathe his whole spirit in 
those purifying and strengthening waters."* 

In the church of Christ, then — the holy family of 
God — is there full provision made for the develope- 
ment of the social principle in human nature, and 
thereby for the raising it to all the excellence and 
happiness for which it was destined. The social 
exercises of religion are the effectual means of 
awakening, nourishing, and diffusing abroad the 
Spiritual life. And to promote these exercises 
Christians have been formed by their divine Master 
into a religious community associated for a common 
purpose, animated in its pursuit by a common feel- 
ing, and contributing to its attainment a common 
* H. J. Rose. 



252 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 

help. Jesus knew the pressing necessities of the 
human mind, when he called men, not from bro- 
therhood to loneliness, not from fulness into vanity, 
but from the community of darkness and disappoint- 
ment to another community which dwells in light 
and breathes throughout its members love and joy. 
Of this community he formed the rudiments when he 
selected from the multitude twelve men who should 
be with him constantly and imbibe his Spirit, and 
become by it assimilated to him and to each other. 
And the unity of this society he solemnly enjoined 
them to preserve when he said, " By this shall all 
men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love 
one to another." This unity he provided for when 
he said to the Father, " the glory that thou gavest 
me I have given them, that they may be one, even 
as we are one ; I in them, and thou in me, that 
they may be made perfect in one." For the main- 
tenance of this unity, even in the fullest enlarge- 
ment of the church, and the comprehension therein 
of all sorts and conditions of men, he interceded 
when he said, " Neither pray I for these alone, but 
for them also that shall believe on me through their 
word, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art 
in me and I in thee, that they also may be one 
in us." 

And accordingly we find that the personal re- 
moval of their Head did not dissolve the Society 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 253 

which he had formed. The disciples were all " as- 
sembled together" on the first day of tjie week, when 
Jesus appeared among them, and said, Peace be 
unto you. After his ascension, moreover, they 
" continued all with one accord in prayer and suppli- 
cation with the women and with the brethren." And 
when subsequently there were added to the church 
three thousand souls, we find this enlarged commu- 
nity "continuing steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine 
and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in 
prayers ; and all that believed were together, and 
had all things common, and they continuing daily 
with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread 
from house to house, did eat their meat with glad- 
ness and singleness of heart, praising God, and 
having favour with all the people." 

Nor need I add how frequently St. Paul refers to 
this grand principle of social unity, and presses it 
on those to whom he writes. Even when the 
church was enlarged to the very boundaries of the 
then civilized world, — even when it comprised per- 
sons of every country and of every rank in life, 
and was composed of such discordant elements as 
Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Barbarians, slaves 
and freemen, — still this is the law of its being and 
the condition of its growth, that it shall " keep the 
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," and come 
thereby, " in the unity of the faith and of the 



254 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 

knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ." The very sacraments of the Church sym- 
bolize this Spiritual Union. The very ordinances 
by which men are received into the body, and from 
time to time proclaim their connexion with it, de- 
clare, as fully, conjunction and communication with 
the members of this community as with its sacred 
Head. " As many of you as have been baptized 
into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither 
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, 
there is neither male nor female ; for ye are all one 
in Christ Jesus." " For by one Spirit are we all bap- 
tized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gen- 
tiles, whether we be bond or free ; and have been 
all made to drink into one Spirit." O the full pro- 
vision for the noblest exercises of the mind which 
is afforded by the Church of Christ ! O the blessed 
interchange of thought, and feeling, and enjoyment, 
by which the Spiritual life expands and grows ! 
There is such a thing as Christian fellowship and 
love — as merging the particular will in the general 
will — as looking, not at our own interests, but at the 
interests of others — as rejoicing with them that re- 
joice, and weeping with them that weep ; and there 
is more essential fellowship in the most imperfect 
intercourse of Spiritual Christians, than in all the 
closest oath-bound combinations of the world. 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 255 

Let the Christian, therefore, diligently cultivate 
this important means of grace, in all its parts — in 
the private sphere of his Family and Friends, and 
in the public sphere of the Congregation. 

For with his Family, and among his Friends, is 
the Christian bound to share, and by sharing to in- 
crease, his devout affections. The whole amount 
of Spiritual life existing in the church of Christ is 
given and held for diffusion and reciprocation. 
Even as the Apostle tells the Corinthians, touch- 
ing their temporal treasures, that he wishes an 
equality, that their abundance may supply the 
want of others, and the abundance of others may 
be reciprocally a supply for them ; as it is written, 
He that gathered much had nothing over, and he 
that gathered little had no lack : — so, much more, 
should it be with those Spiritual treasures which 
we receive from our common Head. There are 
innumerable degrees of life among the members of 
the Lord. There are all the stages from simple 
consecration to him, to the fullest union. And to 
be helpers of each other's faith throughout these 
several stages, to become by mutual communica- 
tion joint partakers of one common Spirit, is one of 
the most effectual means of Spiritual growth. He 
that watereth is watered himself. He that dili- 
gently instructs his children and servants in the 
word of God, and with them approaches day by day 



256 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 

to the throne of God in prayer ; — he that deter- 
mines with the courageous Joshua, " as for me and 
my house we will serve the Lord ;" — he that, like 
the devout Cornelius, " calls together his kinsmen 
and near friends," reminding them that they are 
" present before God to hear all things that are 
commanded them of God ;" — his spirit becomes 
twice blessed — his principles are strengthened by 
reflection from the mind of other men — his consci- 
ence made more bold and powerful by the echoing 
of its dictates — his heart warmed and animated 
by sympathy with its emotions— and his ties and 
obligations to consistency and watchfulness in- 
creased a thousand-fold. A mutual encouragement 
is unconsciously afforded, a mutual check is un- 
consciously established, and we get the habit of 
considering, in every temptation to weakness or in- 
dulgence, How will this harmonize with the pub- 
licly expressed devotion of the morning family 
prayer? — or how will the remembrance of it in- 
crease the shame and the compunction of the even- 
ing confession? — how should we speak and act 
in all the business of life towards those with whom 
we have taken sweet counsel together in its devout 
refreshments ? how shall we take care that the cha- 
racter which we have mutually considered and im- 
plored as worthy of a Christian man, shall be found 
not altogether forgotten, yea steadily exhibited, in 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 257 

our daily spirit and conduct? God knoweth, we 
need every sort of help, we want manifold and com- 
plicated motives, for growing in grace and adorning 
the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things ! 

And how then shall we praise God enough for 
those further helps which he has afforded to our 
growth in spirituality, in the public sphere of the 
Congregation ! Who can recall, however faintly, to 
his recollection, all that his mind owes to the ordi- 
nances of the Sanctuary, and not adore that graci- 
ous Master who has provided such means of grace, 
and love that Church which has administered them 
to him ? It almost startles us, when we attempt to 
trace the process of formation of our present mind, 
to see how gradually, how secretly, and by what 
various helps, it has been fashioned up to what 
it now is ; and of this process, how very much we 
may refer to the public prayers, the public instruc- 
tions, and the public sympathies of the Church in 
which we have been brought up. Some religious 
sentiments, indeed, we get from parents, friends, 
and public opinion ; some are sown in us by books ; 
some spring up of themselves from reflection, and 
are matured by the events of life. But still, were 
it possible to analyze minutely so complicated a 
production as the human mind, how large a part of 
its best principles and feelings would have to be re- 
ferred to the public ministrations which have been 



258 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 

afforded to us in the house of God. Even with re- 
spect to the Bible itself — that great source of all 
religious truth — where was our interest for it ex- 
cited ? where were our inquiries into it assisted ? 
our perplexities concerning it relieved ? where, 
above all, was the personal application of it to our 
heart and soul effected but in the house of God ? 
There have its truths and principles, well known 
perhaps before, become transformed from a dead 
letter into lively oracles, and set home with demon- 
stration of the Spirit and of power. There, have 
we found God himself speaking to us by the voice 
of his Ambassadors, and their words have fallen like 
living sparks upon our mind, and kindled in it faith, 
and love, and adoration. And there, too, what 
clearness and vigour have been communicated to 
our thoughts which were obscure, and our feelings 
which were weak and inefficient ! What new force 
infused into our oldest conceptions ; what new tracks 
opened out for the after course of our private me- 
ditations ; what energy communicated to the inner 
man ! We have seen as with a new understand- 
ing, we have felt as with a new heart, we have 
purposed and attempted as with a new will. Our 
own soul has become partaker of the life that 
breathed forth from the souls of others. We have 
been absorbed into the swelling stream of kindred 
minds, and we have felt that there is but " one 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 259 

body and one spirit, even as we are called in one 
hope of our calling ; one Lord, one faith, one bap- 
tism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, 
and through all, and in us all." 

In public worship therefore must we cherish 
what in public worship has been awakened. By 
regular conscientious attendance on the prayers, 
the sermons, and the Sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
per, shall we best exercise and strengthen the 
Spiritual life. Nay, this life cannot but seek the 
opportunities of public devotion ; it finds its full 
enjoyment chiefly there. That awful sense of the 
Divine Majesty, and that filial confidence in the 
Divine Mercy, which form the primary elements 
of Piety, — where are they experienced so richly as 
in the congregation of the Saints ? For, each child 
of God possesses these emotions as the characteris- 
tics of his renewed mind. And each child of God, 
therefore, brings with him these emotions to the 
house of God, longing to find therein companions 
in their blessedness, and to increase their force and 
their enjoyment by mutual communication. Public 
devotion is the out-burst and diffusion of private 
devoutness. It is one heart summoning another to 
its aid. It results from feeling the impossibility of 
expressing, as we wish, our feelings, and therefore 
calling upon others to help us out in that expres- 
sion. It is the bringing the faint, quivering, fitful 



260 DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 

spark of piet}^ which lies smouldering in our own 
hearts, that it may catch new vigour from the 
similar spark in others, and together burst into the 
steady flame of grateful sacrifice ascending straight 
and strong to heaven. That spirit, therefore, which 
forms the essence of the parts will form the essence 
of the whole. That which breathes, however faintly, 
in the bosom of the individual Christian, will breathe 
in all its vigour through the body of the faithful. 

Is it not so specially in the service of the Church 
of Erjgland? Do not that mingled Reverence and 
Confidence, which form the essence of Piety, 
breathe through all her forms of Prayer? We ap- 
proach God as his people, — consecrated to him in 
Christ — baptized into his holy family — and there- 
fore privileged to pour out our hearts before him as 
our Father. Yet we come as men who have, alas ! 
abused those privileges, — forgotten this relation — 
dishonoured this family — and breathing therefore 
the most touching feelings of humiliation that any 
human composition can give utterance to. Witness 
the " general Confession to be said of the whole 
Congregation, all kneeling ;" and still more that to 
which we are called before the table of the Lord, 
" meekly kneeling on our knees." Nothing in them 
is forced, nothing affected, nothing grovelling and 
mean, nothing outraging the decencies due to hu- 
man nature even in its degradation ; — and yet r O 
how full, how deep, how well adapted to indicate, at 



DEVOTIONAL FELLOWSHIP. 261 

least, if it cannot express, the most intense com- 
punction of the penitent heart ! 

Thus, then, does our service begin : — with giving 
utterance to, and thus increasing, the penitential 
Awe with which the sinful child should come before 
his Holy Father. But then a change comes gra- 
dually on. The strain of sorrow is relieved by 
occasional notes of hope ; and there are sounds of 
pardon and absolving grace commingled with it ; 
and from these steal forth the cheering suppli- 
cation, — " Our Father which art in heaven ;" and 
then comes the Sprayer of hopeful dependence — 
" O Lord, open thou our lips ;"— till at last the very 
soul of Confidence is wakened up, and bursts aloud 
into the chant of unchecked adoration — " Glory 
be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost !" — " Praise ye the Lord ! The Lord's name 
be praised !" And then the sister feelings, each 
now set free to run its course, go on together in 
linked harmony, intertwining all their notes — now 
one prevailing now another, — now soft, now loud, 
now quick, now slow, — but the theme — the blessed 
theme ! — of Christian Devoutness still preserved 
throughout, and every string within the heart awak- 
ened, and every feeling touched through all its 
chords, till there is felt 

" One life within us and around us, 
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere." 



262 



CHAPTER III. 

DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 

By the heart, in this connexion, I mean the seat 
of those emotions which are stirred within us by 
the sense of personal interest and well-being ; — the 
pleasure of possessing, and the pain of being with- 
out, a seeming good ; the hopes and fears of future 
advantage or disadvantage, and all the joys and 
sorrows which accompany their excitement. These 
emotions, in the irreligious man, are vivid and un- 
ruly in proportion to the natural temperament, and 
they exhaust the energies on the unsatisfactory and 
ever-changing objects of a transitory world. But 
it is the privilege of the Christian to reduce all 
their fluctuations under the moderating influence 
of faith in God. It is one great mark of Piety 
to exercise Dependence on our Father's care, 
and by recognition of his all-pervading and con- 
trolling hand to possess our souls in patience. And 
this essential element of the Spiritual life must be 
nourished by that " prayer and supplication with 
thanksgiving" which stills the beatings of the foolish 
heart by " making known our requests to God," 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 263 

and leaving them with him to be disposed of ac- 
cording to his will — which consists, therefore, not 
merely in a meditative recognition and enjoyment 
of His presence, but in a habit of referring all 
things up to his disposal, and of waiting on him 
daily with a child-like trust. 

Now, of all the pure fresh feelings of early youth, 
which make us love to look upon it, and which sus- 
tain our reverence and affection for human nature, 
notwithstanding its corruption, the most marked 
and lovely is that simplicity of Trust, that ready 
unreflecting Dependence, which we see a child re- 
pose upon a Parent's love and a Parent's care. To 
feel a sorrow and to communicate that sorrow to 
its Father's ear, to experience a want, and to bring 
that want to be relieved by its Father's hand, are, 
to the simple child, simultaneous movements of the 
heart. It knows itself, only in connexion with its 
Father — it has no experience of pain or pleasure 
that does not fall back upon him — it looks up to 
him for explanation of every difficulty — flies to him 
in every danger — rests on him with quiet confi- 
dence in his power to protect — and, folded in his 
arms, can look round with a steady eye upon a 
threatening world. 

But as a little child towards its Father, so is the 
Christian privileged to feel towards God. " Piety," 
observes the Swiss Reformer, Zwingle, " is a. word 



264 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 

applied as well between parents and their children 
as between God and man And that adher- 
ence of the heart, by which a man relies without 
wavering on God as the only good — who alone can 
soothe his sorrows, alone avert from him all evils or 
turn them to his good — and thus regards him as a 
Father; this is piety; this is religion." And Prayer, 
therefore, as the exercise, and thereby the nourish- 
ment, of Piety, consists, in the first place, in refer- 
ring zip to God all our existing sorrows and joys. 

For the essence of Devoutness consists in recog- 
nizing God as working all in all. Not only as pre- 
sent with all things, and the ground of their being ; 
nor as merely actuating all things by his universal 
life ; but as the Ordainer and Controller, the sove- 
reign Disposer of every event. Nothing, we are 
sure, can happen, any more than it can exist, but 
by his permission and appointment — not a sparrow 
falleth to the ground without our Father. And con- 
sequently whatever be the various appearances of 
things to the human eye, they are all essentially wise 
and good ; the rays of light may take a thousand 
colours and shades of colour, from the surfaces 
they fall upon ; but they are all alike pure colour- 
less emanations from the bounteous Sun. True, 
this is a mysterious fact. But the child of God 
has learned to live by faith, and not by sight, and 
therefore he is satisfied with knowing that so it is. 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 265 

And it is practically necessary to him that he 
should believe this. He cannot do without it. The 
doctrines of a God and of Providence are nothing to 
his peace without this. He must refer every event 
to God's appointment, or he cannot escape despon- 
dency in trouble, and presumption in prosperity. 
If from any other source than from my Father 
comes the calamity which pains me, I must crouch 
down under it in despair. If from any other source 
than from my Father comes the prosperity which 
exhilarates me, I shall give back to that source the 
homage of my praise. If there is more than one 
ultimate cause of all events, then is there more than 
one independent being ; and to more than one the 
hopes and fears of a dependent creature must direct 
themselves. But the Christian has turned from idols 
to serve the living and true God — he has ceased 
to stop at secondary causes, because he has had re- 
vealed to him the Great First Cause — to him there 
is but One God the Father, of whom are all things, 
and we in him — and therefore he receives his sorrow 
and his joy as sent by Him, and Him alone. 

And hence his warrant for praise, and for peti- 
tion. All supplicatory prayer has no basis but the 
fact of the particular, immediate, all-directing and 
controlling Providence of God. Only as we recog- 
nize the hand of God shall we lay hold of it. Only 
as we see Him everywhere shall we depend upon 



266 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 

him everywhere — and rejoice in him everywhere. 
The mode of his presence and control is indeed, 
and ever must be, far beyond our ken, but the fact 
of it we must believe ; or prayer is a delusion, and 
thanksgiving but an empty form. 

Does, then, seeming evil press upon the Chris- 
tian ? He recognizes it as coming from his Father, 
and therefore he believes it to be real good. He 
learns from Jeremiah that " out of the mouth of 
the Most High proceedeth both evil and good ;" and 
from Isaiah that " He forms the light and creates 
darkness, he makes peace and creates evil, he, the 
Lord, doeth all these things." He asks, with Job, 
" Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and 
shall we not receive evil ?" And therefore he ex- 
claims like him, " The Lord gave and the Lord 
hath taken away — blessed be the name of the 
Lord !" Even as the tempest and the earthquake 
and the thunderbolt are witnesses of God, as much 
as are the fruitful seasons and the rain from heaven 
which fill our hearts with food and gladness ; — even 
as the cloudy pillar, as well as the light of fire, was 
a symbol of his presence ; so through the darkest 
equally as the brightest atmosphere it is the Chris- 
tian's privilege to behold his guiding and guarding 
God. And thus Prayer becomes the utterance of 
implicit acquiescence ; and its language is that of 
the divine sufferer — " The cup which my Father 
hath given me, shall I not drink it ?" 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 267 

On the other hand, does Prosperity dilate the 
heart with joy ? That heart expands towards God 
— that joy breathes forth the incense of its adora- 
tion before the mercy seat. The Christian rises 
from admiration of the gift, to gratitude towards 
the Giver. He passes through all secondary causes 
till his full heart reaches Him who has disposed 
and actuated all, and he exclaims, " The Lord 
hath done great things for us, whereof we are 
glad !" " Second causes," says Zwingle, " are ra- 
ther means and instruments, than properly speaking 
causes. It is not really the earth that brings forth, 
or the water that nourishes, the air that fertilizes, 
or the fire that warms, or the sun that animates ; 
but it is HE that is the source, the life, and the 
support of all things, who uses these various instru- 
ments and by them works their several effects. He 
feeds the varied fruits of the earth by the element 
of water ; refreshes, fills, and makes them grow, 
by the air ; ripens and gives them beauty, mellows 
and perfects them, by the sun. — When therefore 
we see the parent earth putting forth her corn, the 
tree bearing his fruit, the sun shedding light and 
warmth around, let us as much realize the hand of 
God ministering all these things to us, as we do 
that of a kind Father when we see him give a clus- 
ter of grapes to his beloved child." 

But not only so. Not only does the prayerful 



268 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 

heart acquiesce in all its trials, as God's appoint- 
ment, and rejoice in all its blessings, as God's gifts ; 
but along with and in each passing feeling of sor- 
row or of joy it maintains a sober waiting upon God, 
as unchangeably the same amidst the various vicis- 
situdes of life. The particular emotion, be it plea- 
surable or painful, is almost merged — at least it is 
much modified — in the sense of general dependence 
on the never-failing providence of God, Our feel- 
ings may vary, but our convictions are constant. 
The lower heavens may be clear or may be cloudy, 
and we must necessarily feel the difference; but 
the upper are eternally serene. The light of the 
Sun may be withdrawn — and then a gloom comes 
over us ; or it may shine forth brilliantly — and then 
we are full of joy ; but still, the life of the Sun, the 
vital warmth which streams from him unseen, re- 
mains enough for our existence, in the darkest 
midnight even as in the brightest noon- day glory. 
Christian, Forget not this ; — think not that God is 
gone from you because he is shrouded from your 
sight. Rejoice, indeed, in his appearance, as an 
added blessing ; but despond not at his seeming 
absence, for in Him you still do live and move. 
All events are transient and changeable as the 
hues of heaven, — one moment there is brightness, 
and another gloom : and therefore be not greatly 
lifted up in the moment of prosperity, nor cast 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OE HEART. 269 

down in the hour of adversity ; but in both alike 
remember whence result the shadows as well as the 
lights which are so variously flung on every object ; 
and wait on Him who is "the Father of lights, 
with whom is no variableness neither shadow of 
turning." 

But dependent Prayer consists, secondly, in lay- 
ing before God our fears and hopes. For it refers to 
God the future as well as the present. Our antici- 
pated pains and pleasures, as well as our actually 
experienced ones, it moderates and sanctifies by the 
thought of God. We cannot but look onward to 
the future with various emotions. It is the prero- 
gative of mind to look before as well as after — to 
crowd the present with conceptions of the future 
as well as of the past — to try and sum the series of 
coming events. But those events can never be 
correctly calculated. We know not the law of their 
progression— we can only conjecture from existing 
causes probable results — we can but hope, or fear. 
And O how miserable is that mind which has to 
bear and balance these conflicting, and continually 
fluctuating feelings, by itself alone ! which is ever 
wandering in the uncertain region of the probable, 
and according to its present tinge of feeling, looks 
out with sanguine expectation, or with gloomy 
dread, upon the dim expanse of things to come ! 
We may seem to see the future stretching out 



270 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 

before us, — but who can trust in his ability to direct 
his course therein aright ? We are hurrying on- 
ward down the current of events, and launching 
out into an unknown sea without a pilot and with- 
out a chart. And what then can men do without 
a spirit of dependence upon God ! How can they 
brave, with nothing but their own shortsighted 
plans and puny power, the dangers of that untried 
ocean ! I do confess I cannot understand how 
peace can be maintained a moment without that 
waiting upon God, that simple leaving matters in 
his hands, which is exercised and nourished in de- 
pendent Prayer. Prayer takes the several antici- 
pations which agitate us, and tells them out to 
God. Prayer goes up to his presence, as Hezekiah 
went into the temple with the threatenings of 
Sennacherib, and spreads them before the Lord. 
And thus Prayer devolves our burden upon God, 
in the certain confidence that he will sustain it. It 
is both the privilege and the duty of the Christian 
thus to leave things to his Father. " Take no 
thought for the morrow," says our Divine Master, 
" for the morrow shall take thought for the things 
of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil there- 
of." For our duties, indeed, prospective as well as 
immediate, we should be continually taking thought, 
(for virtue is deliberation, and is made up of cir- 
cumspection and foresight,) but not for all the pos- 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 271 

sible events which our teeming imagination may 
bring before us. Duties are ours, and therefore 
we must consider and provide for them. But 
events are God's, and therefore we may thankfully 
leave them in his hands. 

And Prayer enables us to do this. It makes 
man and things recede, and it brings forward God. 
It changes the alarmed inquiry, What shall I do 
hereafter ? into the submissive question, What wilt 
Thou have me to do now ? It turns our thoughts 
from wearying conjecture to hopeful action. It 
draws the curtain over the undistinguishable pro- 
spect, and brings us to sit down quietly and wait for 
its clearing up — wait peacefully, because it is not 
chance which is at work, but God — wait patiently, 
because his work he will accomplish in his time. 
He will make all things work together for good to 
them that love him. He will bring the blind by a 
way they have not known. He will make darkness 
light before them, and crooked things straight. 
Christian reader, be not curious about the future, 
but commit your way unto the Lord, and he shall 
bring it to pass. Trust him for whatever interests 
you — your health, your comfort, your support, your 
family, your friends, your reputation, and your life. 
Be not dismayed by the shadows of coming evil. 
Even what seems to you unavoidable is but a small 
part (O how inconceivably small !) of God's whole 



272 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 

purpose towards you. You look out only on the/, 
immediate future ; and you forget the infinite fu- 
tures which stretch out behind that future. You 
see before you, perhaps, necessary effects of now 
existing causes; but you consider not that those 
effects will in their turn become causes of still 
subsequent effects which may be altogether of a 
different character. Events must never be esti- 
mated in themselves alone, but in their rela- 
tions — their innumerable ramifications — their 
interminable sequences. But those relations are 
every moment changing. God is every instant mo- 
difying them. And therefore an occurrence which 
to-day lours upon us as an evil, we may see to- 
morrow brightening up into a good. Out of the 
bitter root will spring the medicinal leaf, or fra- 
grant blossom. From the gloomy cloud may fall 
the fructifying shower, and this again give place 
to the enlivening Sun. Besides — suppose certain 
sequences of things to be indeed inevitable — sup- 
pose that pious wisdom right!}'' calculates concern- 
ing them, and that they will come. They will not, 
and they cannot, come exactly as they now present 
themselves to our imagination. We are looking only 
on one class of objects, — all modified and coloured, 
by our present humour ; but they will be surround- 
ed, when they come, and thereby be modified, by 
unimaginable other objects. We calculate on meet- 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 273 

ing them with the mind and feeling which oppresses 
us at present ; but we forget that we ourselves are 
changeable, and that our state of mind in actual 
contact with the future, may be altogether differ- 
ent from that with which we are now anticipating 
it. Above all, we are looking at them as distinct 
from God — let loose to work their fury on us, at 
their will — careering in the untamed wildness of 
tumultuous chance ; — but what does faith assure to 
us ? what will prayer enable us to feel ? what will 
the spirit of a trustful and a hopeful child be satis- 
fied of? That, when they do come, God also will 
come with them — will grasp them in his mighty 
hand — adjust them by his wisdom — turn them at 
his gracious will — ride on the whirlwind and direct 
the storm ! 

And therefore, thirdly, a yet higher spirit of de- 
pendent prayer will be the general commendation of 
ourselves into the hands of God. All reference to 
him of our occasional joys or sorrows, all taking up 
to him particular hopes or fears, will merge them- 
selves in an habitual sense of being not alone, for 
our Father is with us — an habitual conviction, (and 
O how marvellous a truth it is !) 



that we and our affairs 



Are part of a Jehovah's cares." 
For there are many moods of mind in which both 
pleasure and pain, and fear and hope, exert but 

T 



274} DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 

little influence on us ; in which the spirit inclines 
but little towards the past or future, but seems 
balanced in itself; in which we feel with David, 
" Whom have I ' in heaven but thee, and there is 
none upon earth that I desire in comparison with 
thee !" — " The Lord is my portion, saith my soul !" 
This feeling, in proportion as it becomes habitual 
to us, affords not only a remedy but a preventive of 
anxiety. It does not merely restore, it preserves 
the balance of the mind. Just as we are conscious 
of reliance on a friend, even when not obliged to 
ask his help — just as we turn instinctively to him 
at the first glimpse of necessity, and thus the ear- 
liest movements of alarm are quelled ; — so the 
thought of God our Father affords to the habitually 
dependent mind the gravitating influence which 
retains the struggling imaginations in their proper 
orbit, and prevents their rushing onwards through 
infinity. This is to " pray without ceasing." This 
is what St. Paul refers to, as the Christian's grand 
support in that perplexed condition of mind, in which 
desire and supplication, hope and fear, are silenced 
by the very impossibility of conjecturing what may 
be the will of God, — when he tells the Romans, 
" The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know 
not what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit it- 
self maketh intercession for us with groanings which 
cannot be uttered," — that is, with secret, undeve- 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF HEART. 275 

loped aspirations— with thoughts too deep for words. 
When conception fails us, and mental life does not 
express itself in verbal forms — when the spirit re- 
tires from the images of sense, and the creations of 
fancy, and all the hurried workings of the under- 
standing, deep into itself — has nothing specific to 
ask, because it feels its utter inability to form a de- 
finite wish — lies passive in those everlasting arms 
which it is sensible are underneath it — and breathes 
out simply, " Into thy hands I commend my spirit, 
for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of 
truth !" — O this is the sabbath of the soul — this is 
" waiting on the God of our salvation all the day !" 
This is Faith — Faith in its highest power and no- 
blest exercise — which asks not a disclosure of the 
future, but is satisfied with having no one object 
visible but God — which desires no clearer vision 
of the distant shore, but looks forth on the vast 
unvaried ocean of futurity, calm and hopeful, though 
not a speck may be distinguished on it — nay, though 
clouds and darkness rest upon it — assured that over 
the abyss the Spirit of love and life sits brooding. 
O for this sacred calm of soul ! this holy hush of 
the collected mind ! this losing of our petty self in 
the immensity of being, and reclining on the bosom 
of the Infinite with this one single feeling, " I wait 
upon the Lord, — my soul doth wait !" 



276 



CHAPTER IV. 

DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 

We have seen already that there can be no true 
Piety which does not affect the Will, nay, have its 
seat and throne in the Will, renewing it into con- 
formity with the will of God. We cannot conceive 
a child of God having a will at variance with his 
Father's will, or even indifferent thereto. There 
can be no true delight in God's presence, nor de- 
pendence on his help, where there is not also devo- 
tion to his service. He that has received the spirit 
of adoption at all, must have received it, however 
feeble in degree, yet complete in kind. He must 
possess therefore, with whatever fluctuations, a ge- 
neral desire and purpose to honour God's name, to 
walk worthy of Him who has called him to his 
kingdom and glory, and to become perfect as his 
Father which is in heaven is perfect. In a word, 
to use the expression of our Lord concerning his 
Apostles, (Matt. xxvi. 41.) " his spirit must be will- 
ing" — his purposes must cordially harmonize with 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 277 

those of God, and he must be ready to do his will. 
It was so with those Disciples even amidst their 
heedlessness, their rashness, their ignorance of 
themselves, and their dulness towards the warnings 
of their Master. They had no treachery of heart 
towards him (as, alas ! the absent Judas had) ; but 
felt and meant all that they said when they ex- 
claimed, " Though we should die with thee, yet will 
we not deny thee." And so will it be with all who 
are " transformed by the renewing of their mind, 
that they may prove what is the good and accept- 
able and perfect will of God." 

But then, with this " spirit which is willing," 
there is still about the Christian " the flesh which 
is weak ;" — the prejudices, preferences, appetites, 
and passions of his lower and original nature ; and 
these are continually opposing his new and higher 
purpose, seeking to mislead it, to enfeeble it, or at 
least to clog its efforts. We see this in those same 
Disciples. The very men who were at one moment 
full of generous zeal for their Divine Master, are 
soon found " sleeping, for their eyes were heavy !" 
The very Apostle who now is ready to go with his 
Lord to prison and to death is within the hour for- 
saking him and flying — nay, shrinking from the men- 
tion of his name — nay, protesting with an oath, " I 
do not know the man !" The best intentions are 
forgotten ; the most expanded zeal collapses to a 



2/e DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 

point ; the most resolute determinations have slunk 
away ; the spirit was willing, but the flesh is weak. 
And who does not confess that so it is with every 
Christian man ? Who is not compelled to cry con- 
tinually with bitter self-reproach, ." The things that 
I would I do not, and the things that I would not, 
those I do !" 

Here, therefore, we perceive the strong necessity 
of Prayer as a means of exercising, and thereby 
strengthening, the Will. It was to this that Jesus 
directed his Disciples as their great preservative 
in the coming trial — " Watch, and pray, that ye 
enter not into temptation." He knew their willing 
spirit, and he loved them. But he knew too their 
weaker flesh, and he was fearful for them. He en- 
deavours, therefore, to arouse them to a sense of 
their spiritual danger, and to the earnest seeking 
of that divine strength without which they must 
fall. And herein does he teach us that in Prayer 
must lie our strength — by constant bringing of our 
will under the eye and influence of God must we 
reduce it into harmony with His. 

And this, Prayer enables us to do, by settling our 
judgment of what is the will of God in each parti- 
cular case. However honest our desire to please 
our heavenly Father, we are continually in danger 
of mistake concerning what will please him. The 
general principles of God's will are, it is true, set 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 279 

forth by him in his Holy Word, and enforced by the 
responsive voice of his Spirit in the heart. But when 
we come to act out the details of duty, we are in 
danger either of forgetting those principles, through 
the prevalence of a crowd of selfish, worldly maxims 
of the Understanding, which judges, not according 
to the grand ideas of Faith, but according to the 
mean suggestions of Sense ; not according to the 
Distant and Unseen, but according to the Visible 
and Immediate ; — or of misapplying those princi- 
ples, through the perplexity and ignorance of this 
same Understanding which can only judge accord- 
ing to the evidence — obscure and meagre, nay, con- 
flicting, though it be — which may be brought be- 
fore it ; and which therefore leads us into many an 
evil path, and involves us in a thousand errors, be- 
fore we are aware. It is, therefore, one thing to 
have a will for God, and quite another to have this 
will sufficiently predominant above all other wills, 
and sufficiently enlightened, when predominant, to 
direct our steps aright. 

Now here our remedy is Prayer. Prayer, which 
does not merely seek for strength to execute our 
judgment, — for that judgment may be wrong, — but 
lays out that judgment before God, that in his pre- 
sence, and in dependence on his promised guidance, 
we may consider and decide it. We are in danger 
of being hurried along by the conclusions — the 



280 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 

rash, perhaps, nay, passionate conclusions^— of the 
Understanding. Prayer brings us to a pause, that 
we may recollect, What saith the Lord? We are 
tossed, perhaps, upon a sea of troubles — our pro- 
spect overcast, our land-marks gone, our reckoning 
at fault. Prayer runs to the compass and the chart 
which God has given us, to find in what direction 
we must steer. We are wavering between diver- 
gent trains of thought, each carrying us in turn 
along its course. Prayer discloses some new object 
which at once decides their relative correctness. 
Prayer saves us from the judgment of our solitary 
and exclusive self, by reminding us of another 
than ourself, and of the judgment of that other, 
to modify our own. Who has not experienced the 
advantage of considering, in cases of perplexity, 
What would such or such an honoured Friend think 
of this matter ? How would his mind, untroubled 
by the personal considerations which disturb my 
judgment, decide ? — And what then is the privilege 
of thus referring to the mind of God ! of waiting, 
with a growing sense of his immediate presence, 
for that calm serenity in which the slightest whis- 
per of the conscience may be heard ! In the very 
act of such re- arguing the case before the quiet 
glance of his piercing eye, our mind is gradually 
purifying ; all that is earthly sinks away — all that 
is heavenly streams into the consciousness, — our 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 281 

subtle lusts slink off like unclean spirits at the com- 
ing dawn — our holier principles start up from their 
sleep — we find ourselves impelled against ourselves 
into another judgment — and yet are conscious and 
assured that this other is a better, and the right 
one. We have passed from the twilight of the 
Understanding into the noon of Reason, and Rea- 
son we feel is none other than* the light of God. 

" Whene'er the mist that stands 'twixt God and thee 
Defecates to a pure transparency, 
That intercepts no light, and adds no stain — 
There Reason is, and then begins her reign !" 

Nay, more than this. Prayer is not only medi- 
tation on our purposes under God's all-purifying 
glance — it is communication to him of our inmost 
mind — spreading before him all our circumstances, 
recapitulating our reasonings, discoursing with him 
on our plans. And who knows not the value of dis- 
course, to modify what was crude and arbitrary, to 
clear up what was confused, to bring out our con- 
clusions clean and sharp ? " Whosoever," says 
Lord Bacon, " hath his mind fraught with many 
thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify 
and break up in the communicating and discours- 
ing with another. He tosseth his thoughts more 
easily, he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth 
how they look when they are turned into words, 
and he waxeth wiser than himself, often more by 



282 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 

an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. 
Dear Christian Reader, would you wax wiser than 
yourself from day to day? Discourse with God 
in prayer ! Submit to him your decisions. Talk 
with him of your purposes. Pray that by the 
influences of his Spirit you may have " a right 
judgment in all things." Beseech him so to " cleanse 
the thoughts of your heart by the inspiration of 
His Holy Spirit that you may perfectly love him 
and worthily magnify his holy name." Intreat that 
you may be " filled with the knowledge of his will 
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you 
may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, 
being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in 
the knowledge of God." 

But Prayer influences the Will, further, by 
strengthening our determination to do the will of 
God, when known. The willing spirit may exist, 
but it may be dull and languid. It may clearly see 
its path, but it may not be alert to enter vigor- 
ously upon that path. It requires to be roused and 
animated and propelled— to pass from being well 
inclined, to being resolutely determined, to the ser- 
vice of God. 

And this determination it obtains in Prayer. For 
Prayer not only brings the will of God distinct and 
full before the mind, but it stimulates the heart to 
embrace that will, and devote itself to its accom- 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 283 

plishment. For who can look on sin without ab- 
horrence, when he views it in the light of God's 
own countenance? Who can look on holiness 
without a yearning for its full possession, and a 
deep resolve for its pursuit, when he gazes steadily 
on its surpassing beauty? We cannot purpose 
evil, we cannot but resolve for good, when we be- 
hold them as they are in prayer. And hence the 
saying of the old divines that Prayer will make men 
give over sinning, or sinning will make them give 
over prayer. The two states of mind — as prolonged 
and settled states — are incompatible. We cannot 
" think upon" the things that are true, and comely, 
and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report, 
without being won and carried away by them. The 
glow of admiration kindles into love, and love bursts 
forth into determination, and we go forth from the 
presence of the Lord instinct with vigour in His 
cause. Look only at the contrast between those 
poor disciples, who, with all their willingness of 
spirit, neglected the admonition of their Lord, and 
did not give themselves to Prayer, and the Holy 
Jesus who sought therein the life and power of 
God. As the last great trial drew nearer to him, 
he drew nearer to his Father. Once, and twice, 
and thrice, he brought the fluctuating emotions of 
humanity under the assuaging influence of the Idea 
which formed the living principle of his existence, 



284 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 

and renewed and re-invigorated that Idea by imme- 
diate communing with God, till God's will alone pos- 
sessed his soul — God's will breathed and burned in 
the very centre of his consciousness, subordinated 
every other thought into entire harmony of action 
with itself, and brought him back in calm, untrou- 
bled majesty — in himself collected — saying to his 
astonished disciples, " Rise, let us be going ; behold, 
he is at hand that doth betray me." 

And this — something, at least, like this — is the 
effect of Prayer upon the will of those who bring it 
in its weakness to be inspired with power from hea- 
ven. What we have not in ourselves the Spirit of 
God supplies : and we gain more strength from 
prostrate supplication than from all the arguments 
and efforts that human ingenuity can devise. By 
the thoughts awakened in the mind, and the feel- 
ings stirred within the heart, amidst the awfulness 
of Prayer, the Holy Ghost descends into the will 
and turns it whithersoever it should go, and nerves 
it to high purposes and noble deeds. We become 
strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. 
We are strengthened with all might by his Spirit 
in the inner man. We find him doing exceeding 
abundantly above all that we ask or think, by His 
power working in us. We labour, striving according 
to his working which worketh in us mightily. We 
can do all things through Christ which strength- 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 285 

eneth us. It is in Spirit that all power resides, 
throughout the Universe. Matter is weak, inert, 
passive, instrumental only — Spirit alone originates 
all change, is active, mighty, causative. And what 
then is the power of The Spirit ! What the 
strength to be derived into our will from His holy 
inspiration ! Is it not as a cordial circulating 
through the frame ? Brings it not secret refresh- 
ings which repair the strength, and fainting spirits 
uphold ? Do we not awake by it, as one out of 
sleep, and like a giant refreshed with wine ? With 
our purpose clear before us, and our heart set firm- 
ly on that purpose, what can we not achieve for 
Him who loveth us, and whom we love ? 

We see what such a spirit can achieve when 
it enabled Abraham to offer up his only son — and 
Moses to brave the wrath of Pharaoh — and Elijah 
to present himself before the cruel Ahab — and 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, to refuse to 
worship the golden image — and Daniel to continue 
kneeling on his knees, giving thanks to God and 
praying as aforetime. We see what it could do for 
Peter and John when they declared " We cannot 
but speak the things which we have seen and 
heard" — and for Paul, when he exclaimed to the 
brethren, «< I am ready not to be bound only but 
to die for the name of the Lord Jesus," — and when 
at his first answer before Caesar " no man stood 



286 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 

with him, but all men forsook him ; notwithstanding 
the Lord stood with him and strengthened him'' 
We see it in the glorious company of the Apostles, 
and the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, and the 
noble army of Martyrs, — in " Gideon and Barak, and 
Samson, and Jephtha ; in David also, and Samuel 
— who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the 
mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, 
escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness 
were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, put to 
flight the armies of the aliens." God's strength 
perfected in human weakness — this has been the 
wondrous fact exhibited in every age, in all who 
have sought the grace of God in prayer. If we 
drink in thereby the Spirit of God we cannot but do 
the things of God ; for that Spirit is quick and ac- 
tive, and must work — that Spirit is holy, and must 
work holily — that Spirit is mighty, and must work 
mightily. " He that is devout," says Bishop Tay- 
lor, "besides that he prays frequently, he delights 
in it as it is a conversation with God; he rejoices 
in God, and esteems him the light of his eyes, and 
the support of his confidence, the object of his 
love, and the desire of his heart ; the man is un- 
easy but when he does God service ; and his soul is 
at peace and rest when he does what may be ac- 
cepted. — And therefore, if you can but once obtain 



DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 287 

delight in prayer, and to long for the time of com- 
munion, and to be pleased with holy meditation, 
and to desire God's grace with great passion ; — if 
you can delight in God's love, and consider con- 
cerning his providence, and busy yourselves in the 
pursuit of the affairs of his kingdom, then you have 
the grace of devotion, and your evil nature shall he 
cured." 

Thus, then, we have seen the benefit of Prayer 
in the widest meaning of the term, as the means 
of exercising all the powers of the soul, and there- 
by nourishing the Spiritual Life, — as enabling the 
Mind to realize and enjoy the presence of God — 
the Heart to depend on him in every change — and 
the Will to co-incide and co-operate with his. 
Prayer imbues our own thoughts with the thought 
of God. It delivers us from all anxiety about the 
absence of a seeming good, or the presence of a 
seeming evil. It gives us courage to bear the want 
of what our Father has withheld from us, and to 
suffer what our Father puts upon us. It raises us 
above the fluctuations of human fear and human 
longing. It subdues our will into conformity with 
God's will. It developes in us powers that are di- 
vine. It strengthens us to act on every occasion as 
becometh those on whom the eye of God is fixed 
and to whom the honour of the Highest is entrusted. 



288 DEVOUT EXERCISES OF WILL. 

To think of God as the Creator amidst all our ad- 
miration of the universe — to confide in him as the 
Sovereign Ruler amidst all the changes of the 
world — to follow him as the only Guide amidst all 
the allurements of earth — in prosperity to praise 
Him, in adversity to trust in Him — amidst our dili- 
gence to glorify him for his help, and in our weak- 
ness to believe that he can fulfil in us all the plea- 
sure of his goodness — this is to live in Prayer, to 
grow by Prayer, to become transformed by Prayer 
into our Father's image, till at last we shall be fully 
like him and shall see him as he is. O Thou Author 
of all godliness, without whom nothing is strong, no- 
thing is holy, work Thou this transformation in our 
hearts ! Use Thou this book for the purposes of 
thy grace ! Communicate, awaken, nourish by it, 
the divine life in many a soul — and thus stablish 
our hearts unblameable in holiness before Thee our 
Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 
with all his Saints ! 



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